The Promise
by Gimme Mocha
Summary: It's been a full decade since they last spoke, but some experiences cannot be forgotten. And neither can some people.
1. Chapter 1

(Couple of quick story notes: This is set in the same headcanon 'verse as _Desire_ and _The Storytellers_, as well as _Two Weeks_. The full text of _Two Weeks_ isn't posted here due to site rules, but can be found at Archive of Our Own by searching for author name **Gimmemocha**. It's explicit, so if you don't want to read porn, skip it. This story does not depend on that one, though it does refer to events in it a couple of times. This takes place after the events of Inquisition, so there may be spoilers for that as well as the other Dragon Age games. The tl;dr version of my particular canon is this: Neria Surana is the former Circle mage Hero of Ferelden, Alistair died killing the archdemon, and the Inquisitor is a young Evelyn Trevelyan in a relationship with Iron Bull.)

* * *

_You should leave,_ her good sense argued.

_You'll be seen,_ it said.

_They'll demand answers they don't want._

_They'll ask you questions._

_They'll ask about him._

Neria closed her eyes and looked away from the sight of revelers as if she could quiet the voice in her head with the gesture. She had come to Skyhold to seek out Varric Tethras, to hear from him the story of Anders' fall. It had given her no peace; he had warned her fairly.

So why didn't she leave?

She opened her eyes again, watched a soldier demonstrate a dance step to a mage. They stumbled around each other, laughing and teasing. A woman fed a bit of food to another woman; the smiles they exchanged foretold a more intimate sharing yet to come. A man, face buried in his hands, accepted comfort from an elf, her hand on his back as she spoke words to him that Neria couldn't hear.

Maybe this was why.

She had spent long years in silence with the Qunari, her body and mind intact only by the grace of Sten's – the Arishok's – strength and prowess. Only after he had taken over as one of the Triumvirate had she been allowed to speak in public, and even then only after the room had been cleared of those deemed susceptible to potential demonic possession.

Or in private, with the Arishok himself.

Until he finally had banished her, made her see that Ferelden was where she had to be. She suspected he did it to keep her safe. Her counsel had helped him win out on the matter of declaring war against Kirkwall after the death there of the previous Arishok, but war seemed inevitable and he hadn't wanted her to feel obligated to fight alongside the Qunari.

Too, there was little chance that she would have been able to use the full strength of her powers in battle, not without a true Arvaarad. The Qunari were willing to accept the Arishok as her keeper in peacetime, when she worked no overt magic, but had they seen what she was truly capable of…

So she had returned to Ferelden, though in steps and stages. That had been the last time she had been among crowds of people, she decided. Tevinter. And from Tevinter to the Dalish, and more years of quiet. From the Dalish to Orzammar, and untold time in the Deep Roads with the newly prestigious Dead Caste.

Only the Breach had drawn her out of the ancient thaigs. The breach, the rifts, and the Inquisition.

So how long, then, she asked herself, had it been since she had been among laughter and celebration? Among unrestrained joy and the safety of sorrow?

But that answer was easy and immediate: Denerim.

She had not celebrated with them.

So, she answered herself, this was why she stayed. To feed a part of her soul she hadn't even known was starving. This was why she sat on a log at the edge of firelight, enduring the cold as the Dalish had taught her, watching people indulge in the joy of simply being alive.

"Maker's breath," someone said. "It is you."

Her heart sank and she readied in her mind a spell of concealment, intending to disappear into nothingness, to return to ice and quiet. She glanced aside to see who had spoken.

It took her a moment to recognize him. His eyes were darker, not in color but in knowledge. His face was scarred, and bare of the moustache and tidy beard he had worn. He seemed larger, somehow, his frame filled out doubtless from the extremities of war instead of simple daily practice. And yet his face was thinner, more defined. Refined, rather, distilled out of the morass of youth into the stone set of full adulthood.

Only the hair was the same. Blond curls close-cropped to keep them relatively tame, little licks and whorls defying the strict discipline of a Templar cut.

"Cullen," she blurted out, startled.

"I thought I had gone mad," he said, taking another step toward her as if he didn't quite trust that she wouldn't vanish. "I've been seeing glimpses…" Then he realized what she wore. "A serving girl? Have you been here this whole time?"

She stood from her perch, uncomfortably aware of the attention they were drawing. People would begin to ask who she was, that the Commander of the armies of the Inquisition was spending so many words on her. "I haven't," she said. "I've only been here a few days—"

"Days? Days, you've been here?"

"Please, Cullen." She looked around and stepped closer to him, lowering her voice. "I meant to be gone by now. I'll go."

"Maker, no!" He took her arm in his hand, as if she meant to run off that very moment. "You're freezing," he said. Without asking, pulled off his open-fronted surcoat, massive fur collar and all, and swung it around her. "Come, let's go inside. I didn't mean that you should leave, quite the opposite. Does Leliana know—"

"No, Cullen. No, she cannot know." Her eyes flicked at the crowd again. Attention, definitely. If speaking with her had attracted some, now that she wore his surcoat the looks were distinctly curious. She sighed. "Very well. Inside, then."

"We'll go to my office," he said, offering his arm.

She pretended she didn't see it, busied herself lifting the furred collar. On her, it was large enough to be a hood, hiding her face in shadows and warmth, and a scent that could only be Cullen's.

After a brief hesitation, he led her to a set of stone stairs and across the wall that separated upper courtyard from lower, to a wooden door in the watchtower on the outer wall. It was surprisingly snug, despite the number of doors that led in and out and the thin, long arrow slits. Perhaps it was the number of candles that burned, or the warmth of the floor seeping through her boots that indicated the presence of a fire in the room below.

Or perhaps it was the heavy fabric, the rich fur, the feeling of being held.

Uncomfortable again, Neria shrugged out of the folds.

"Keep it," he said, reaching out to adjust it around her shoulders again. "Until you warm up."

She looked up at him, caught him staring at her. His fingers remained tangled in the fur of the collar, absently smoothing it down around her slender shoulders.

"I can't believe you're real," he said quietly.

"All too," she said, turning away into the pretense of finding somewhere to sit. She curled into one of the chairs, losing herself in the folds of his surcoat.

After a moment, he sat in the chair opposite her. "Days. You've been here for days."

"You want to know why I didn't announce myself."

"That would be a fair start."

"It… It's the Inquisitor's celebration. I didn't want my appearance to distract."

He smiled, a crooked half-grin that made the scar on his lip curve. "Now that seems an easy answer, for something that's made you so uncomfortable."

Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she returned his smile. "Ever the Templar," she teased, "so observant of mages."

He chuckled and sat back, relaxing into his chair. "Not so observant, if you've been here for days."

"I came to speak with Varric," she said, wriggling her toes in her soft boots as they thawed in the heat.

"Varric? Why with Varric?"

"I chanced to pass through Kirkwall," she said, "and heard stories of a mutual friend."

He cocked his head.

"Anders," she said.

The remnants of his smile died, and his jaw tightened.

"Yes, that's rather the look I got from everyone I asked about him," she said. "Some of them said there was a book, but I didn't want a tale. I wanted the truth."

That restored a measure of his humor, and he bit off a snort of laughter. "So you asked Varric? You've been misled."

"I would have asked the Champion of Kirkwall, but she's proven elusive. Everyone knew where Varric Tethras was."

"What do you know of Anders?"

Her lashes flickered in surprise. "I was his Commander," she said. "I inducted him into the Grey Wardens."

"And do the Wardens make a practice of accepting madmen into their ranks?"

Her silence grew. Something of her growing anger must have echoed in her eyes over the fur collar. He did not look away.

"The Grey Wardens," she enunciated, "accept anyone fit to the task. You are not equipped to understand the exigencies of their lives." But she sighed and dismissed her own anger with a supple gesture of one hand. "No, it is not our practice. Anders was not always mad. He was, once at least, a good person."

"And an abomination."

"No, not always that, either. That happened after he left Amaranthine." She paused and considered. "At least, I think it did."

She brooded over it. When had Justice taken up residence in the spaces in Anders' soul? Justice had still been in Kristoff's form when she had left Amaranthine. Whose idea had it been? Anders, she thought. Consequences had never much concerned him. Though both her own experience at the Circle and Anders' had interested the spirit. Perhaps he had seen an injustice there that begged righting.

"I'm sorry," Cullen said, breaking into her musings. "I… didn't know he was a friend of yours."

She shook her head, recalling herself to the present. "Varric knew," she said. "I assumed you did as well."

"No, that story escaped me somehow." Then he leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. "But where have you been? After you left Amaranthine, no one knew. There were stories, of course."

"Stories you've collected?"

To her secret delight, he colored slightly. "Well. You were one of my charges. I suppose I… had an interest."

"As I recall, you had quite an interest when we were at the Tower together."

He chuckled, low and soft. "And you teased me terribly. It was very cruel of you."

She shrugged, tipping a smile to one side. "There was little enough entertainment for us," she said. "Flirting with a Templar was often the highlight of my day."

"You're changing the subject," he said, changing the subject.

"Yes, of course. Where have I been. Many places."

"With all the people looking for you, no one found even a trace of you."

"Ah. Well. I suspect few of them searched in Seheron."

That surprised him. "The Qunari? A mage?"

"I had a friend there."

"I recall you travelled with one of them."

"Sten," she said. "At least, at the time. He has another name now."

"You can't have been there for, what, nine years? Ten?"

"Ten since the Blight," she said quieter. Ten since the archdemon. Ten since Alistair. She looked away, looked down.

"I'm sorry," he said again, leaning forward to touch her. "I know how unpleasant those memories can be."

"Yes," she said absently, glancing at his hand on her knee. "I'd imagine you have your own nightmares from the Circle."

It was enough, enough to make him draw back. "Yes. They never seem to fade, do they?"

She shook her head.

"Is that why you don't want to see Leliana?" he asked. "Why you didn't tell us you were here?"

"Partly," she said, feeling like a coward, looking over toward the stained glass windows. The dark outside muted their colors, but the leaded Inquisition symbol was stark and plain.

"You would have been welcome," he said, cocking his head slightly, watching her expressions.

"I would have been the Hero of Ferelden, coming to the Inquisition. It can not happen."

"Why not? We've saved the world. I think that merits congratulations from someone who managed the same task not so very long ago."

She stood, shame and anger and hate as sharp as they ever had been. They never seemed to fade. He stood as well, confusion plain on his face, waiting while she mastered her emotions. "I did nothing," she said. "I was simply there when it happened."

"You did not do nothing, Neria."

The sound of her name startled her. The Qunari had referred to her only as Bas Saarebas, save for Sten/Arishok who had always called her Kadan. Among the Tevinter, when they hadn't called her simply 'girl', she had gone by Eleni, a common enough name in the Imperium. The Dalish had called her Asha'abelas. The Dwarves called her Warden, as though she were the only one of her kind.

No one had called her Neria in years.

His hand lifted, then dropped back down. "You brought together every race in Ferelden, forged an army out of enemies. The archdemon—"

She flinched away. "Don't," she said.

Frowning, he reached for her again, took her by her shoulders and turned her toward him. "You saved my life," he said.

Nor did he release her, not when she didn't look up at him. "Your Inquisitor," she said after a moment. "Had she died in this, sealed the breach and destroyed Corypheus but been killed, would you now accept the adulation of those crowds? Would you be content to let them call you hero, knowing they did so only by stepping over her corpse? Would you let her be forgotten so that they could cheer for you?"

"No," he said, his thumbs lightly stroking her arms under his hands. "But that is not how you are seen."

"Alistair slew the archdemon," she said. She struggled against all the other words that filled her throat, swallowed hard to keep them down. "I was simply there at the time."

"And he is honored for it," Cullen said. "But it was not Alistair who crowned a Dwarven king and brought them to the surface to fight. It was not Alistair who persuaded the Dalish to come to human cities to fight. Nor was it Alistair who—" He sighed. "—who rightly saved the mages and turned their magic loose against the darkspawn hordes."

She looked up at him, and whatever he saw in her face made him soften his tone, draw her closer.

"The death of the archdemon was the end of the blight," he said, "but it was not the only act that saved Ferelden. That one moment was the result of everything you had created until then. The people of Ferelden knew it. So while we remember Alistair, we celebrate you."

It was, to Neria, a new idea. Like a flower on a blighted land, it was delicate and fragile, a promise of beauty and renewal. She studied it from a hesitant distance, afraid that too close an inspection would mar it.

"Have you eaten?" he asked her.

She shook her head. Despite all the cooking and feasting, she had only nibbled here and there, and had spent most of her evening closeted with Varric.

"If I leave to bring us food, will you disappear on me?"

That brought out the beginnings of her smile. "I may," she said.

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to tolerate my stomach growling at you."

"Well, I wouldn't want that."

"Promise me," he said. "Promise me you'll stay."

Awkward, feeling as if she had no idea how promises were made or kept anymore, she nodded.

He smiled at her, a smile she had to return. "Good," he said. "Wait here. I'll bring you something. Any requests?"

"Bread," she said.

"Bread?" It made him chuckle anew. "Well, I'll see what I can do."

He left by the same door they had come in, letting in a burst of clear mountain air. She wrapped herself deeper in his coat. Hesitantly, uncertain, she set her nose in the fur and sniffed.

Nice, she decided. He smelled nice.


	2. Chapter 2

Cullen strode through the crowds, pushing by with barely a nod of acknowledgement for greetings or praise. He fixed his eyes on the banqueting tables set up in the dining hall.

Bread, she said. She wanted bread. Nor was it an empty request; her expression had sharpened with hunger for it. Where had she been that simple bread was a rarity, a treat to be desired? Where had she been that she was as pale as fresh milk? Too thin as well. She had always been elf-slender, but now she looked fragile as glass.

There was nothing to carry food on, he realized as he looked over the table. His hesitation whetted his impatience; she had promised she would stay, but there was no doubt she felt trapped. He would have felt guilty for being the one to capture her, except…

Except what? That he wanted her to stay? Was that good enough reason?

No, he decided, a sharp shake of his head. She should stay, at least the night. She would freeze on the mountain. That was all. He owed her; they all did. He could scarcely repay that debt by letting her wander around the Frostbacks without at least a decent meal. He grabbed the tray from the hands of one of the servants running fresh food to the tables, taking it from her. She was dressed almost identically to Neria—

(Neria! Here!)

—and he wondered if the servants were ever cold. He would speak to Evelyn about it. They should be more warmly dressed.

Butter. He took butter and walked down the table, taking food at random. No fruit; she needed more solid fare. Cheese, that would do. She should have meat as well. Why was the roast gone?

"You know, the army can come in here to eat. You don't have to take it to them."

Varric leaned against the table, blocking his access.

"Just… making a plate for myself," Cullen said, awkwardly wedging the large tray between his arm and his chest.

"Uh huh. You should probably take some of those vegetables," Varric said, hooking a gloved thumb over his shoulder toward a largely abandoned plate of carrots. "Elves eat a lot of that rabbity crap and she doesn't look like she's had a decent meal since she left Ferelden."

Cullen frowned. "Keep your voice down," he said.

"No one's listening. Leliana promised to sing so everyone's heading to the main hall."

After a moment, Cullen took some carrots and dumped them on the tray.

"So you found her, I guess."

"In the courtyard," Cullen confirmed. "I owe you an apology."

"Nah. Damn near shit myself when I figured out who she was, I can't blame you for being skeptical." He pushed away from the table so Cullen could pick through the remnants of what appeared to be a ham. "She always look like that?"

"Like what?"

"All pale skin and wide eyes. Creepy," Varric said. "Like she can see what your body parts would look like pasted all over the walls and it makes her sort of sad to think about it."

Cullen strangled his immediate anger. "She's lived through a great deal, Varric," he said as calmly as he could. "I'd think she's seen so many people in pieces, picturing one small dwarf disassembled would hardly task her imagination."

"Whoa, easy there, Curly. Didn't mean to insult your girlfriend. I'm just saying she's got this air about her."

"What are you—?"

"There's a reason I told the former Templar about the creepy mage who appeared in Skyhold and not, say, the bard who helped her stop a blight."

He almost dropped the tray, fumbled it. "You think she's abomination?"

Varric caught the pot of butter before it hit the floor, tossed it once in his hand before returning it to the tray. "It's a thought."

"An idiotic one," Cullen snapped, scowling. "And one you'll keep to yourself."

"You're the Templar. Sorry, ex-Templar. But you might want to think for a moment exactly how bad it could get if the Hero of Ferelden turned out to be carting around a demon. Or two, or three. Seriously, who needs eyes that big?"

"Her eyes are—Never mind about her eyes!" Cullen added a jar of crystalized honey to the tray. "I suppose there's no harm in being sure," he said slowly. "She always was a powerful mage; they are the most susceptible. And if a demon wanted revenge, it would make sense that it would come here, try to get close to the Inquisitor."

"Exactly," Varric said, nodding.

"I'll speak with her some more," Cullen decided. "Until I can be sure of her."

"You do that."

Something in Varric's tone caught his attention and he frowned down at the dwarf. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He looked entirely too innocent for it to be real. "Nothing," he protested. "It's a good idea. You should stick close to her, that's all I'm saying."

"I will."

"Good."

Cullen hesitated, certain he was being set-up for something but unable to say what. After a moment, he turned away. Neria was in his office, but there was no saying how long her promise would hold her.

He thought he heard Varric chuckle behind him.

The door to the office rebounded off the stone wall. Perhaps he had shoved it open a bit too forcibly.

The room was empty. His stomach dropped. "Neria?" he said, stepping further in to let the door close behind him.

"Here."

He turned and looked up. She stood at the edge of the loft, the area he had set aside as his own living space, still wrapped in his surcoat. It did something to his insides to see her standing where he slept, something he did his best to ignore.

Letting his held breath out in a controlled exhale, he walked to his desk, shoving aside reports and pots of ink to set the tray down. "I thought you'd gone."

Her booted feet made hardly any noise on the rungs of the ladder. "I promised," she said. "And you said you'd bring me bread."

He made a mental note to go back for another loaf. Or ten. Or twenty. "I brought butter, too," he said, carting papers and books to the shelves, clearing space for them to eat.

"So you did," she said slowly.

He looked over his shoulder. "What is it? Did I forget something?"

"I can't imagine there's a food made by mortal hands you didn't bring," she said, fingers resting hesitantly on the edge of the tray. She looked over at him. "Are we expecting company?"

Her eyes were fine. Varric was an idiot. Well, not fine, perhaps, but the same unusual, startling green-on-blue they had always been. Sad, though. Varric was right about that. And just now fearful, that skittering distress he had seen in the courtyard when she realized he had recognized her.

"No," he said, feeling he had been quiet too long. "I didn't know what you'd want so…" He gestured toward the tray, only then realizing, with her hand for scale, exactly how much food he had brought. The tray was nearly the size of his desk.

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Perhaps I overdid things a bit."

Tension eased across the set of her shoulders and she pulled one of the chairs closer to the desk. "A bit," she agreed, the corners of her lips brushing higher.

He pushed his chair closer as well and sat, knees not quite touching hers. "So," he said, pouring a glass of wine for her from one of the bottles on his desk. "You were in Kirkwall?"

She nodded, slathering butter on a piece of bread the size of her hand. "I had made my way there from the Coastlands after hearing rumors of problems among the Grey Wardens."

"Amaranthine?"

She hesitated, biting into her food neatly. Stalling, he thought, wondering if she would lie. "No," she said finally. "There are other Grey Warden bases in Ferelden. But it was largely abandoned. The false Calling had done its job rather too well."

He cursed himself. Would he say nothing that wasn't upsetting? "You resisted," he pointed out, taking a piece of ham.

"I knew it was false," she said with a shrug. "Whispers and tugs, I heard and felt them. I think perhaps it's because I've heard the voice of an archdemon echoing in my head. This sound was … something else. Tainted but…" She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I would explain if I could."

"So. Kirkwall."

"Kirkwall," she agreed. "Where I heard the stories. They offer tours, you know. Here is where the Qunari were kept, there is the Hawke estate, and now a pause at the tavern where Varric Tethras stayed and the Champion of Kirkwall was known to drink."

He laughed at that. "And you took the tour?"

"Who could resist? That was how I learned of Anders. The tales were so unlike the young man I knew, I could hardly credit them."

"You could say that about the tales of you as well, you know," he pointed out, nudging the wine goblet closer to her.

Obediently, she lifted the glass and took a sip, wetting her lips and licking them clean. "That is true," she admitted. "They used to tell many more of them, and I never recognized myself. You'll see."

He cocked his head. "I?"

The darkness in her eyes had abated, banished by hidden laughter. "The Templar who took a stand and defied the madness of Meredith to save the people he was charged to protect? The Commander of the Inquisition, who led the charge against Corypheus' archdemon and single-handedly fought through armies of Red Templars to get the refugees of Haven to safety?"

"Hardly," he snorted. "I got the people out, but safety was a long way off. And most of the Templars were dead by the time we snuck out the back."

"Then you see how it is. The tales are never the story. It will only get worse, I can promise you that."

"So you never taught the Qunari how to dance? How disappointing." He tossed her the jar of honey and lounged back in his chair, grinning.

"One!" she protested. "In Denerim, we were watching the people dance and Sten commented that it seemed a waste of energy to practice footwork so ill-suited to fighting." She turned the jar in her hands, then scooped out a solid spoonful and spread it over another chunk of bread. "I told him it was for fun and showed him a tandem, that's all."

He chuckled, picturing her dancing with Iron Bull.

Suddenly it wasn't funny.

He hid it behind a drink from his own goblet of wine. "What did he say to that?"

"He said I was very clumsy, and it was best I had been born a woman as I would have made a terrible swordsman."

He laughed. "That, I cannot see. Clumsy, you?"

She shrugged, but didn't bother to hide her smile. "It's all relative," she said, daintily licking honey from her fingertips. "For all that they are large, Qunari warriors are graceful to a man."

She had traveled to Seheron in the company of a man she spoke of with great familiarity and fondness, described him as graceful. "Ah," he said, refilling his goblet.

"Ah what?"

"I wondered how it came to pass that a mage had journeyed to Seheron and back without having her lips sewn shut. This Sten of yours, you're his, am I right?"

"His what?" She looked puzzled and took another sip of her own wine.

For some reason, saying the Qunari word seemed easier than the more common 'lover'. "Kas-berasala."

She choked on wine, coughed it up, sitting forward abruptly to cover her mouth. Hastily, he grabbed a cloth from the tray and shoved it at her.

"Er… so perhaps not?"

Her eyes were still watering when she looked up at him. "Where did you hear that word?" she croaked, coughing a few more times and scrubbing at the wine in her lap.

Cullen tugged on the collar of his armor, wondering if someone had stoked the fire in the guardroom below a little too high. Maybe he should have just said lover after all. "It's something I overheard Evelyn say once. To Bull. Her Qunari lover."

Delicate eyebrows spiked upward. If it hadn't been for that, he'd have thought she turned to stone. A tear from her still-watering eyes trickled down her face, but she was paying it no attention. She was staring at the door.

He reached out and plucked the wine-stained napkin from her hands, then used it to wipe the tear away.

That brought her back and she blinked at him. Her eyebrows stayed up, he noticed. "You're certain?" she asked. "Was she… was she calling him something and perhaps you misheard?"

"No," he said, forcing himself to stop brushing the napkin down her cheek. "It was quite clear. Then Bull chuckled and stroked her hair. They're not at all bashful about it."

Why it fascinated her so, he couldn't say. "Your Inquisitor has a Qunari lover, and she referred to kas-berasala?"

"I'm starting to think it doesn't mean what I assumed it did."

She caught one corner of her lower lip between her teeth. He found himself noticing the way it made the rest of her lip pout. "I should—" she began. Then she stopped. "No. Qunari politics are no concern of mine. The Arishok will simply have to— Perhaps a note."

"At some point, you do mean to include me in this conversation, I hope."

Abashed, she shook her head. "I'm sorry. It just wasn't a word I thought to hear outside of Par Vollen. Certainly not in reference to the Inquisitor. In any case, no, I can promise you that the Arishok and I are not lovers, and never were."

"The Arishok, is it?"

"The Qunari don't have common names, not as we think of them. When he was a sten, he was Sten. Now he is Arishok."

"And what does he call you?"

"Kadan."

"That means loved one, doesn't it?"

"Yes and no," she said, wiping her hands on the napkin and giving the stain on her clothes one last dab before abandoning all hope. She dropped the napkin back on the tray. "It does, but doesn't imply lover. Your mother or father may be a loved one, after all, as might a close friend. Though it can be used between lovers as well."

"So then, not all Qunari," he said, cutting two slices of cheese and handing one to her, "but you taught the leader of the Qunari warriors to dance?"

She laughed outright, and he relaxed again, his misstep erased. "Yes, I suppose I did."

"Good to see some of the stories have at least a little basis in fact."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

She took a bite of the cheese. "How did you end up in Kirkwall, of all places? When last we spoke, you said you had wanted to go with the others to fight."

He would, he realized, have to be more careful with his questions. Such a small one, but it threatened to slice open the thin veil of peace he wove for himself. It wasn't a feeling he wanted for her. "Greagoir sent me," he said, looking down at his glass, turning it to see the reflections of candlelight on the surface. "After Uldred, after the tower, I had some difficulties adjusting."

"I'd imagine that's putting it mildly."

He tried to smile, but it was hollow. "I suppose."

She waited.

He waited longer.

Neria looked away from him to the cheese in her hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was cruel of me, to bring it up."

"No crueler than I've been to you. I suppose there's no way to discuss where we've been and the things we've seen without touching on darker issues."

"Then we shall tell only happy tales," she decided, looking back up at him.

It was the hope in her eyes that defeated him. Had she always been so open, so easy to read? Once, she had seemed a great mystery to him. Brilliant and confident, possessed of some hidden knowledge that made her the envy of her peers, the pride of her teachers.

And a concern to the Templars. The memory was stark, Greagoir ordering him to the Harrowing Chamber to watch over her as she tested. To kill her if she failed. He wondered if she remembered that.

But she looked at him with those eyes, so uniquely elven, so impossible to forget, and offered him something else to share. She wanted to talk. To tell happy tales.

"It took days to sail to Kirkwall," he said, leaning forward again, taking a carrot and offering her one as well. "Perfect seas, warm weather, belled white sails. I went overboard three times."

Her smile returned, making her eyes sparkle. She took the carrot.

When the wine ran out, he had managed to coax, cajole, and trick her into eating most of the loaf of bread, an entire wedge of cheese, and all the carrots he'd brought. He couldn't be sure who'd had more wine, but he couldn't stop laughing.

"In her knickers, no less, trying to get her hat from Schmooples, Leliana running after the both of them, screaming at Morrigan not to kill her nug. Suddenly, Korcari leaps up from my bedroll, charges across the campground, snatches the hat away and off he goes, into the night."

"Schmooples," Cullen managed to gasp out.

Grinning, Neria raised a hand. "Hand to Andraste, she named it Schmooples. It was the biggest thief in the camp, and we had an Orlesian bard and an Antivan crow with us."

He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and caught his breath. "Ah. Maker. Schmooples. I wish I had known that sooner."

"Well don't tell her now, or she'll know I've been here."

"What happened to the hat?"

"Never saw it again, though to placate Morrigan we did go searching for it in the morning. Ugliest thing you ever saw. Three odd little feathers sticking out of it and these straps… I confess I gave Korcari an extra bone when he got—"

She stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. "—back," she finished, blushing a faint pink.

Cullen uncrossed his ankle from his knee and stood. "I've kept you up too late," he said.

Neria shook her head. "No, not at all. I can't think the last time I laughed this much. But I should probably be going."

"You can hardly go wandering about the mountain at this hour," he said. "You'll fall off a cliff."

"I won't," she said, standing as well. "I promise, I've wandered worse mountains at later hours and managed quite well."

"Then you can manage even better in the morning. And you'll be able to take some supplies with you."

She hesitated, and he pressed his advantage. "Stay the night," he said. "Surely you can't prefer a cold snowdrift to a warm, soft bed."

"I suppose one more night won't hurt," she said finally. "Not that the beds in the servants wing are all that soft."

"Stay here," he offered.

Halfway through sliding off his surcoat, Neria blinked at him.

"I'll sleep in the barracks," he hastened to add. "Nothing untoward. You can stay in my bed. No one will disturb you, and you needn't fear being recognized or detained."

She finished pulling off his surcoat and handed it to him. An expression flickered across her face, a bite of wicked humor there and gone. He wondered how to call it back. "I've a better idea," she said.

His hands fisted in the fabric. "Oh?" he asked as casually as he could manage with his mind conjuring the images it was.

She ascended the ladder, quick and light.

He hesitated at the bottom. Was he supposed to go up after her? Was that too presumptuous? He began extinguishing the candles. Perhaps he should go to the barracks after all. That did seem safest.

Light flared and died from the loft. He had a sudden image of her magicking herself away, vanishing through one of the slitted windows though he knew it was impossible. Hastily, he clambered up the rungs after her.

In the loft, there was a wolf, long-legged and thickly furred. Some trick of magic, though, had translated her thinness. Its hip bones jutted out, and he could see the faint knobs of its spine.

Had he encountered such a beast in the open wood, he would have killed it out of mercy.

But this wolf had her eyes. Green on blue. It should have felt peculiar to address a wolf, but she remained uniquely herself. "If I see one flea," he warned her, "out to the kennels you go."

She snorted and padded lightly to the bed, springing up with an easy grace to curl up at the foot. Her tongue curled as she yawned, exposing rows of teeth that looked all too authentic.

He chuckled. "I always wanted a Mabari," he said. "I suppose this is close."

One of her eyes opened, and her pricked ears went back.

"Sleep well," he said, blowing out the candles on the bedside table before removing his armor.

A wolf, he told himself sternly. It was just a wolf.

But she had chosen to stay. Had stayed with him.

He slid into the bed carefully, wearing only the loose cotton pants and shirt that went under his plate. If he disturbed her, she gave no sign.

Cullen laid awake for hours, thinking about nothing more than the pressure of her body at the foot of his bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Neria drifted back to consciousness cradled in ridiculous softness. She shifted, nuzzled the chest under her cheek, slid her legs across the depth of the mattress. Her leg hit an obstacle and she lifted it to drape it over the leg under her. Her mind would not supply the location, but she was in a bed. A real bed. And she was warm, through and through.

Though some of that was likely due to the man holding her.

She woke and jerked her head backward

Her bedpartner was too close to see, especially with the remains of a night's sleep clouding her eyes. She was clothed, she knew that much. Her head ached. She was in a bed with a man.

Cullen.

Her heart skipped sideways, abruptly too full of too many emotions, each of which wanted their full say. She didn't dare shift in his arms. It would wake him.

But she had gone to sleep a wolf, she knew she had. It was a familiar form, if not the earliest she had learned. It had been some quirk of Morrigan's ego, she always thought, that the witch hadn't taught her the form she herself most preferred.

_"You're trying to think like a spider," Morrigan said, slow and careful enunciation turning the simple sentence into derision._

_"And what's wrong with that?"_

_"Because you're supposed to be a spider, of course. Do you suppose a spider spends a great deal of time pondering itself as a spider? It simply is one."_

Once she had the knack of it, she understood Morrigan's words better. But that had always been the way of everything that had passed between herself and the Wilds witch. Nothing quite made sense at the time it happened, only hindsight providing the necessary clarity.

Since she had mastered shapeshifting, Neria had never lost a form she didn't want to lose. When she traveled, she usually slept as wolf or bear, finding warmth and safety in an animal form that her elven one could not match. When she slept, she didn't think of herself as anything, and so she maintained the form throughout the night.

Until last night.

Which could only mean that at some point during the night, she had stopped being a wolf, and remembered herself as a woman.

Neria's thoughts burst like a flock of startled pigeons, each flying off in a different direction, filling her mind with bits of feather and fuzzy down. She had to do something before he woke, had to move. Or leave. But with his arm over her, she didn't dare.

Wolf! She could simply change back into a wolf. It might wake him, but by the time he was aware of her again, she would be decently on four legs and covered in fur. She tried to summon the desire to be a wolf.

And looked into a pair of sleepy whiskey-brown eyes scant inches away. "Neria," he murmured.

His eyes widened. "Neria!" He scrambled backwards away from her and she spun the other way, clambering out of her side of the bed as she heard him thump to the ground.

"I'm sorry!" she said, her back to him. Her shaking hands rose to check her hair, her clothes. Were they straight, were they proper? Why was she thinking about her hair? "I'm so sorry. I must have— I didn't mean to— I should go."

She bolted for the ladder, forced her limbs to work. This, she told herself, was what came of silly dalliances. She should have gone, should have flown away. As an owl, the night air was no hindrance. She could have been halfway to Amaranthine by now, could have sent her message to Weisshaupt and been done.

"Neria! Wait!"

He slid down the ladder, hadn't bothered with the rungs. Before she could open the door, he had caught her by her arm. "Wait, please."

She didn't look up at him, couldn't. "I should go," she repeated.

"Why? What happened?"

She shook her head, couldn't express how wrong it had been. To lose control of her magic, of herself. To have relaxed so completely.

To have slept in another man's arms.

With a wince, she turned from him, tried to pull away.

"Neria, we did nothing." He refused to let her slip free. "We only slept."

She couldn't make him let her go, hadn't the strength. Short of blasting him with magic, she could do nothing. So she let him keep his hold on her, but would not look at him.

After a moment, he released her arm. "I won't keep you, then. But I do wish you would tell me what I did wrong."

"Nothing. You did nothing wrong. These choices were all mine, and none of them were… I should have left last night, shouldn't have let you keep me here. It was a mistake. I just—I wanted—"

"To feel human again," he finished softly.

"I'm an elf," she responded.

"No, that is not a game you can play with me," he said. "How long has it been since you slept in a proper bed? Ate a proper meal?"

She didn't answer.

"How long, Neria?"

Head still down, she tried to calculate. She knew he didn't mean sleeping in the servants quarters. He didn't mean curled up underneath a tree or in a hollow. He didn't mean eating raw rabbit on the run or fish clawed from a stream.

So she couldn't remember. Kirkwall?

Carefully, he touched her again, slid a hand down her arm, took her hands in his. Her skin woke under the touch. "You should stay," he said. "Regain your strength. You're at the end of it, it's plain to see."

"Callouses," she said faintly.

"What? Oh, sorry. Did I hurt you? Mages and your fingers…"

"No," she said after a moment. "No, you didn't hurt me. You've callouses from sword and shield. It was… familiar." But it was enough, enough to give her the power to lift her head.

Only somehow, she had to tilt it farther back than she expected to.

She blinked up at him. "You're very tall," she said.

Concern and worry blurred from his expression as he chuckled. "No taller now than I ever was," he said.

"Alistair wasn't that much taller than I."

Understanding, sympathy, hurt, and regret melded together in an alloy of emotion that was all to easily seen. "Ah," he said.

After a moment, awkward, he dropped her hand and stepped back. "Nonetheless, you should stay. You're thin to the point of emaciation. The false Calling has stopped. Corypheus is defeated. Surely a few days rest can't do any harm."

The rising sun revealed the full glory of the windows behind him, painted him in an aura of color. His blond hair haloed golden around his head. One curl stood out sideways. The shirt and pants he wore were light cotton, soft fabric that would not chafe under armor, loose and baggy. Backlit, they revealed the cut of his shoulders, the line of broad chest narrowing to lean waist.

Now the awkwardness was all hers. "No," she said faintly, with no clear notion what it was she was objecting to.

"Breakfast," he suggested. "A hot bath. It's been a rather unsettling morning, I think. You'll be clearer-headed after some food."

She wanted to deny the need, but recalled all too well the fragility of her own fingers held in his. Perhaps she was too worn. That was doubtless the real explanation of her loss of control in the night. Too tired, too many days tracking rumor and myth. Too many losses.

Gingerly, she nodded, taking care not to shatter the fragile fiction they wove in silent agreement.

"Good," he said. "Take your pick of what's left, if you're hungry. I'll go and fetch a bath for you, though it may take some time to heat the water."

Her smile flickered back to life. "I can heat my own bath water, Cullen."

"Oh. Yes. Yes, I suppose you can. I should see if I can find some clothes for you as well. You won't want to put those back on, not with the stains, I think?"

"I have clothes," she said. "A pack, even. I left it hidden outside the castle."

"I'll send someone for it."

"No," she said. "I'll retrieve it."

He stared at her, his arms folding. The motion pulled the shirt snug across the breadth of his shoulders. She looked away.

"If… If you mean to leave," he began hesitantly.

"No. Only to retrieve my pack."

"Promise?"

"You put a great store of faith in my promises," she said.

"I have nothing else to keep you here," he admitted with a shrug.

"Still trying to take care of me."

His smile matched hers, sad and small and only halfway present. "Someone should."

A hint of steel shimmered in her voice, a reminder of who she was. What she was. "I can take care of myself."

"Prove it," he suggested, undaunted. "Stay. Rest. Eat. When your strength is back, depart with my blessing."

"I have to get a message to Weisshaupt."

"We'll send it. You can't move faster than Leliana's network. No one person can."

Actually, Neria was fairly confident she could unless the entire network could grow wings and fly. But even she had to stop sometime for sleep. She sighed.

"That's not a promise," he said.

"You're really quite stubborn."

He chuckled. "Coming from a Grey Warden, that's a compliment."

"Fine. I promise I'll come back."

"_Right_ back."

It made her laugh. "I promise I'll come right back."

Cullen smiled. "Good, then. You get your things, I'll have the bath sent up."

Neria shook her head and gestured at the office. "I can't bathe here," she pointed out, "not with people walking in and out. And you'll never get one up that ladder. Food, I'll take, and warm water, and give you my thanks for both. I'll stay the day, but tonight, I must depart."

He nodded, so agreeable she knew he had no intention of letting her go. "I'll see to it," he said.

But the ex-Templar, once her guardian, would soon learn that he no longer had a say in such matters. Weisshaupt would not wait forever for her tidings.

* * *

Out on the mountain, any owl would have been an odd sight, but the brown-and-gold stippled feathers of the forest predator stood out in bold relief against the silver-white of the mountain's icy rocks. It stared at Leliana's scout, prowling the mountain still on his regular patrol, and fluffed its feathers against the cold.

The scout stared back at it, his hands resting uneasily on his bow. He knew an unnatural thing when he saw it, but even those who had abandoned the aravels and paths of the forest for the stone of Skyhold still followed the old gods. He would not detain their messengers.

"Aneth ara, da'Andruil," he murmured, slinging his bow over his shoulder and continuing on his way.

Neria waited until he was safely out of sight before dropping down to the sheltered nook in the crevasse. There, the light of her transformation wouldn't be as easily seen.

"Another myth for the Inquisitor," she sighed with a wry smile.

Elven again, she tugged and pulled her pack free from the rocks she'd hidden it behind and retrieved the staff wedged in behind it. The pack fit over her servant's disguise and would transform with her. The staff, silvered ironwood bound with blue leather and topped with a silver griffon, was an old companion by now. It resonated with her, accepted her magic and focused it through the crystal the griffon perched on. It, too, posed no burden to her shifts in form.

A chance breeze whistled down into the ravine and ruffled strands of her hair that had come loose from the crowning braid twisting around her head. Neria tilted her head back and looked up at the painfully blue sky above, then closed her eyes against a flare of sunlight off her staff's crystal. Now free from Skyhold's walls, she found she had little desire to return to them.

Three days, she had been at Skyhold. This was her fourth. Three days of personal indulgence, three days to hear the story of how Anders and Justice had become monstrosities and died as mass murderers in the ruined streets of Kirkwall. Three days of carrying and fetching and pretending to be the servant she might have become, had her talents as a mage not manifested and taken her out of Denerim's alienage.

She thought of the wind through her feathers, the taste of the air. She thought of the long hours of flight between her and Amaranthine. She thought of her duty to the Wardens, to the memory of Riordan and all who fell as Wardens, to those who sacrificed their lives just for the chance to become what she was.

She thought of a pair of whiskey-brown eyes so close to her own.

What would Duncan have said? His quiet wisdom and calm confidence had seen her through those first terrifying, exhilarating days walking out of the Tower. So much open air. So much walking. The blisters alone… What would he have done?

Duncan, she decided, would never have promised. But having done so, he would abide by it.

Trading skin for feathers once more, Neria rode the frozen winds of the mountain toward Skyhold.

Below her, a scout lifted his bow in one hand, a salute to the goddess of the hunt.

Carrying pack and staff, she would have been spotted, stopped, and questioned anywhere in Skyhold. There was no hope of finding a secluded spot in which to transform then simply walking back to Cullen's tower office. Instead, she perched on his windowsill and waited until he came back, then tapped at the glass until she had his attention.

She saw his eyes widen, then he strode to one of the doors.

Wings fluttering, she dropped off the window, caught a gust, and circled around the tower before sweeping past him and into the room. In a fit of showmanship, she transformed before landing, touching down with elven feet.

He turned to keep her in sight, closing the door behind her. "That wasn't something you learned in the circle," he said.

"No," she agreed. "But in eleven years, one does pick up a few tricks."

She didn't question the nip of regret she felt that he had donned his armor again, had managed to smooth out the worst of his curls.

"There are a few questions," he told her, gesturing to the covered basket on his desk. "I'm sorry to say that people have become aware I'm hiding someone in here."

Neria took in the color rising in his cheeks and found it charming. "A female someone?"

"Er… well, yes, actually. It's causing talk."

"I'll disappear soon enough," she said, sitting in the same chair she had used the night before. "It will only add to your mystery. Just smile a little and say less; it will drive them mad."

He chuckled. "A tactic you employ often?" he asked, helping her unpack the food. Bread still warm from the ovens joined slices of fried meat, last night's leftovers converted into this morning's breakfast.

"A Warden specialty."

"There's water upstairs," he said, gesturing at the wooden slats overhead. "Only a few buckets."

Neria glanced upward. "Only a few?" she asked. "How did you get them up there?"

"Carried them, of course," he said, cocking his head.

She looked at the long ladder, at the relatively small access to the loft above. "Of course," she said.

Cullen set a layer of ham, crispy and curling up at the edges, onto a buttered slice of bread and handed it to her. "I've done more difficult things, taking care of you," he said.

"Oh, I was never so rebellious as all that," she objected. "Irving would have said I was the model mage."

"You were a nightmare," he corrected her. "You know, you were one of my first charges at the tower? I hadn't been there more than a week or two before you graduated to Apprentice and were assigned to me. An entire passel of you. It was like herding cats."

Neria wiped a bit of melted butter from the corner of her mouth. "Oh yes, so difficult," she teased. "We never left the tower, attended to our studies, read voraciously, and went to services. Such a challenge for you!"

He waved her off. "You questioned everything, every one. Where does that door go, who is that man, what's in that box. For all I knew, you would at any moment decide a spell looked too fascinating not to try and you'd blow up the entire tower."

"I never blew up the tower," she replied primly. "And a mage should be curious." Then she smiled. "Do you remember the time you caught me in the library after hours?"

"Must have blocked it out."

"I had wedged myself into a shadow between the shelves and the wall, convinced I'd not be seen, and was reading a book when you found me. I didn't even hear you approach, but suddenly there you were, tall and armored and disapproving. You reached down and took the book out of my hands, set it aside, and marched me back to my room. You even stood there while I crawled back into bed." She wrinkled her nose at him. "Quite humiliating. I don't think I snuck out again after dark."

"You had enough tricks," he said. "I distinctly remember being called to come fetch you out of the storeroom where you were attempting to exterminate rats with lightning bolts. You almost destroyed the place."

"That's not at all how I remember it," she replied, taking the tea he handed her. "The kitchen help had been complaining for days about how bad the rats had gotten, and no one would let us have a cat. It seemed quite logical to me the proper thing to do was eliminate the rats. The complaints stopped after that, I'll note."

"The complaints stopped," he said. "The rats did not. But no one wanted to say a thing about it; they were afraid you'd start a second advance and they'd all be killed in a fire."

"You were so stern," she sighed. Then she scowled and lowered her voice. "Neria, you know it is forbidden to do magic outside of your studies," she said in a very poor imitation of him. "Come away, and let others handle such matters."

He laughed. "I'm sure I was never so pompous."

"You were never anything but. That's why I flirted with you. Jowan was forever egging me on. He thought it was all terribly amusing."

An unfortunate mention. Her smile faded, as did his.

He leaned forward in the silence to spread a thick layer of soft cheese on a cored, flat slice of apple and handed that to her as well, before making one for himself. "You only think that because you don't know half of what we allowed," he said. "Or did you think we were entirely ignorant of the pranks you lot played on each other?"

Her nose wrinkled again. "Missah. I loathed that girl."

More silence. More memories. Missah had not survived the night the abominations had swept through the tower, slaughtering where they could not corrupt or convert. They ate in a silence Neria did not know how to break.

"Well," she said, setting the mug aside, "that's food, and now my bath I suppose."

"I'll not disturb you," he said, "but unfortunately there is still work to be done. Some of the army will disperse, but soon we'll have to decide what to do with those who stay. I understand Leliana – sorry, Divine Victoria – wishes to see if some of our soldiers will come with her now that the Chantry has so few Templars."

"Divine Victoria." Neria shook her head. "One wonders what sort of Divine a former Orlesian bard and Inquisition spymaster will make. The Nightingale's reputation is hardly one of comfort and peace."

He stood as she rose from her chair. "The other options were only less appealing. At least Leliana believes in reform. Certainly she was the only one Evelyn felt comfortable putting the weight of the Inquisition behind."

"Remind me not to linger long in the company of your Seeker Pentaghast then," Neria said, looking up the ladder. "Wasn't she one of the candidates?"

"She was," Cullen confirmed, staying near the desk as she climbed. "But even she is content to see Leliana ascend to the Sunburst Throne. Will you be all right?"

Neria paused near the top and glanced down at him. "Cullen Rutherford, you may stay in your office and work. I am quite capable of bathing myself."

"No! No, that's not at all what I—I only meant that—" Then he scowled. "Maker's breath, only here a day and teasing me already."

She felt the laughter, but kept it back and climbed to the top.

* * *

When she had stretched out on the bed, she wasn't quite sure. Sometime after a profligate use of the water to wash her hair, that she knew. After she had shaken out the sadly wrinkled blue smock that went under her Warden's robes and pulled it on, baggy around her. She had sat on the bed to braid her wet hair. That, too, she knew.

But though she could not assign a specific time to when she had fallen asleep, she roused slightly when someone gently freed the covers from under her and pulled them over her, warmth settling to her chin.

"I remember," she heard him whisper, though she couldn't be bothered to open her eyes or respond. "You were just a slip of a thing, all pale skin and dark hair. I thought you were reading something forbidden. I thought I would have to punish you, report you."

A hand smoothed over her damp hair, rearranging the braid to lie outside the covers, away from her skin. "Then I took it, looked at it, and realized it was a romance story, something Mia might have read and hidden from our parents. You looked up at me, those eyes of yours so wide with guilt and fear, your knees drawn up to your chin. With that one look, you changed everything I knew about my life.

"I was to protect the world from you, yes. But I knew then that I would also do anything to protect you from the world."

It was a nice thought.

She fell back asleep, holding to it.


	4. Chapter 4

As surreptitiously as he could, Cullen sniffed his furred collar again. He still couldn't place the scent. Hers, undoubtedly, though she hadn't worn it long. Why any scent would cling to it after so many hours, he couldn't say. Still, it was there. Something shadowed and soft. It reminded him of deep forest roads where two men couldn't march side by side. It smelled like narrow deer trails and distant streams, like gray air filling with rain that hadn't yet fallen.

He realized Leliana was eyeing him oddly and stopped, clearing his throat. "The point is, Inquisitor, your armies are not getting smaller. There are more recruits now than there were before Corypheus was destroyed."

Evelyn stared at him. "You must be joking," she said.

"The Commander is correct, I'm afraid," Josephine said. "Stories of the Inquisition are still spreading, and as they spread, they attract recruits."

"Well, tell them we're closed, for the Maker's sake!" Evelyn said. "Corypheus is dead, why are they all still coming? Doesn't anyone in this blasted army want to go home, get married, and raise fat babies?"

"Are those your plans, Inquisitor?" Leliana asked innocently.

"Don't start, 'Victoria', or I'll have a parade escort you all the way to your pretty new throne."

"You would, too."

Cullen interrupted again. "I do have recommendations on which companies would be best suited for serving as the core of Divine Victoria's new guard, but that doesn't answer half of the problem. You have an army. What do you intend to do with it?"

Evelyn studied the table in the war room, but he knew the blank look on her face was indicative of anything but a quiet mind. It was simply her way; she would stare at nothing, then abruptly announce something that might sound borderline mad but would be effective, clever, or outright inspired.

Though, he admitted to himself, of late that might have more to do with the spirits of Mythal than any native talent.

Still, when she answered it was decisive. "Exactly what we have been," she said. "Red lyrium is still a problem; we'll need to contain and destroy as much of it as we can. People's homes and farms have been destroyed. Starvation will be a real concern in days to come. Much of these efforts we can leave to the rulers of their respective lands, but the Inquisition will not stand by and watch people suffer for lack of simple labor."

She nodded acceptance of her own plan. "Begin to break the men down into smaller squadrons, say of twenty or so men each. Anyone who sends to the Inquisition for aid will have it. We're as well-supplied as any kingdom on the face of Thedas. We can send arms, food, building materials. And they can report back to us regarding any rift sightings. I hardly think we've closed them all. If they're still out there, then I'm still out there."

"Excellent," Cullen said. "Then if that's all…?"

Evelyn frowned at him. "Do you have somewhere to be, Commander?"

"You'll have to forgive him," Leliana said, amusement filling every rounded vowel and softened consonant in her Orlesian tone. "It seems our commander has been entertaining someone in his tower."

"Bullocks," he muttered.

Evelyn's eyes widened. "Really now?"

"Oh yes," Leliana went on. "It's all very mysterious. No one's gotten a good look at her, but he's been sneaking food and buckets of fresh water in for the last two days."

"Maybe he's got a dog."

Cullen turned his frown on Josephine. "She is not a dog!"

"Then there is a she!" Evelyn said, delighted. "Or maybe it's a he."

"Maker, it's like having three sisters," he sighed. "Yes, there's a she, and no, there's nothing salacious going on, so you can all stop looking so blasted gleeful about it."

"I heard she's a servant girl," Josephine confided to Evelyn, sliding a glance at Cullen.

"She is not a servant girl."

"There's nothing wrong with her being a servant girl, Cullen," Evelyn chided. "I'm sure she's perfectly lovely."

"She's a friend, and she's not entirely well at the moment," he said, trying to intimidate the lot of them with his best scowl. "I'm simply giving her a place to rest until she is better."

He'd have had better luck scowling at Red Templars.

"Perhaps we should send one of the healers," Leliana suggested.

"I should probably go," Evelyn said. "After all, I am the Inquisitor. It's only polite that I should greet a guest of the commander of my armies."

He rubbed his forehead. "Look, could we all perhaps focus on work?"

"You're the one who wanted to hurry out of here so you could go visit a sick friend," Evelyn said. "Let's see now, so she's not a serving girl and she's not a dog. Come, Cullen, how unsuitable can she be? I'm living with a Tal-Vashoth mercenary; I'd hardly judge."

"Perhaps she is the daughter of one of the houses who aligned against us," Josephine suggested. "That would be very romantic."

"Or someone awkward," Leliana said. "Isn't one of Bull's Chargers an elven mage? That would be most unseemly."

"Maybe she's a commoner who swept him off his feet. Like Flissa. Is it Flissa? Tell me it's Flissa."

"I am leaving," he informed them, "to begin working up a new roster for smaller squadrons of men. I hope that when I am done, the lot of you will have found some other bug to peck and scratch at."

He had to walk around the table and across the room to escape.

"I think he just called us a bunch of biddy hens," Evelyn said.

"Perhaps you should order him to stay."

"I might at that. That poor girl could use a break anyway, if he's had her alone for two days."

He hurried, shutting the door on their laughter.

"Another blight," he muttered, stalking down the corridor, slamming the door open with the flat of his hand, "another breach, another insane godling. Send me anything but more women."

Nor did he shorten his stride as he crossed the main hall and through the rotunda, oddly empty with Solas gone. The elven apostate had never been loud, but the room somehow seemed to acknowledge his absence. He wondered if anyone had learned yet where he had gone.

But when he stepped outside and saw the angle of the sun, he forgot all about Solas.

Late. It was late afternoon, and he hadn't even realized it.

He did his best not to bolt across the wall to his office, but he did, in his haste, ignore more than one attempt to catch his attention. He hit the door with hand and shoulder, shoving it open. One glance around was enough to reveal the emptiness of his small office.

"Neria?" he called, climbing the ladder without waiting for a reply. She could still be sleeping.

Let her still be sleeping.

The covers were rumpled around her form, slight though it was.

He almost lost his grip on the ladder, forced himself to exhale his held breath quietly. Slower now, he finished the climb and walked across the floor to the bed.

She slept on her back, head fallen to one side, cupped hand on the pillow by her face. Not one twitch of finger or eye disturbed her sleep, her breathing quiet and even. She must have tossed and turned at some point, because the blankets had slipped to her waist. Carefully, watching her expressions for any hint he was disturbing her, he pulled them back up.

Now that he knew she was still here, still sleeping and safe, he was free to wonder why it mattered so much to him.

He couldn't deny that he'd been ridiculously infatuated with her, back in the Circle. She was lovely, though objectively he'd seen more beautiful women in his time, even at the tower. But she had impact. She walked into room and voices muted. She looked at someone, met their eyes, and they faltered in whatever they were doing.

Not Cullen. He was her Templar. She was his charge. No one, he used to tell himself, had been on the receiving end of as much of her attention as he was. Not even the occasional lovers she had taken – and assumed no one ever knew about – had gotten as many looks as he had, as many conversations, as many smiles.

Of course, that might have had something to do with the glares he tended to give anyone to whom she showed such a preference. None of her dalliances had measured up to a mage many spoke of as a very early candidate for First Enchanter. At least, not in his mind.

And she had been _right there_, within easy reach, but he was forbidden to touch her.

But that had been over a decade ago. Closer to twelve years now since she had left with Duncan, gone off without Cullen to watch over her. So blithely unaware of the dangers that haunted her, of the danger she could be. Not that he hadn't trusted the Grey Warden; it was only that she was his responsibility, and he had never been very good at letting go of responsibility.

He had never looked for her to return, though he had kept counting her in his head when he went through the tower on his rounds, checking on his charges when he wasn't standing a post. Kept having to remind himself that she was gone, had to find a way around the awkward gap she had left in his life. And when she had returned

_Fear, tormenting him with his darkest nightmares but his darkest nightmares had already come true. Sloth, because he was so tired, had fought for so long against the demons, against Uldred, against abominations, and now he could just lie down and rest. Despair that he had been forced to kill so many, carving his way through people he had sworn to protect. Pride that he alone had the strength to resist, to survive where others of weaker mind and will had fallen. Desire, promising him the surrender of forbidden bodies, all his for the claiming, taking them where and when he wanted._

he hadn't believed she was real. And still, she didn't see the danger. She had walked through the tower, passed the bodies, killed no small share of her own friends, and yet she believed in them. She had gone up the stairs and he, trapped in that prison, could do nothing to stop her. To help her. To keep her safe.

Then Kirkwall. Again, he failed. Failed to control his own anger and fear, had helped Meredith in her insanity, had agreed with the iron-fisted control over the mages. He had forgotten, for a time, that they were people. Just people, living under a threat worse than the one imposed by the Templars. At least a Templar could only kill you. A demon could do far more horrible things.

He had finally shaken free of his own fears, finally seen the conditions they were forcing the mages to live under. Of course they had rebelled. Even the sweetest dog would bite if beaten long enough. But it was too late. More of his charges had died. More had suffered.

Now they would continue to suffer. His arguments for preserving the structure of the Circles had not carried enough weight, not with Evelyn or with Leliana. There would be no more Circles, at least not under the Chantry. No more Templars to keep them safe, to keep the world safe from them.

To keep her safe.

Suddenly, Neria's peaceful slumber seemed somehow threatening. Was she just asleep, or had she wandered into the Fade? Was she even now confronting a demon, battling with one to maintain control of her mind and body and soul, somewhere beyond his reach?

"So serious," she said softly.

He blinked, then quirked a smile. Busy watching her, he had forgotten to watch her. "Just concerned," he said. "Go back to sleep."

She sniffed and shifted under the covers, rubbing at her eyes with one fisted hand. "I think I slept enough," she said. "What time is it?"

"Still morning," he lied. "It hasn't been that long."

"Liar," she said with a soft upward curve to her lips. "If it weren't that long, you'd not be concerned."

He chuckled, low and rueful. "Too clever by half. Very well, it's after noon. But there are still plenty of hours left in the day. Sleep awhile. I'll try to be quiet below."

She shook her head and closed her eyes. "I like hearing you work," she said with a yawn. "Sounds like the Vigil or the Peak. Like home."

Home.

"But no, I should get up," she said. "You promised to have a message sent to Weisshaupt for me. It will take some time to write."

"It'll give me time to think of something to tell Leliana. Or Harding. I believe she's the one Leliana has in mind for the Inquisition's future spymaster."

Neria yawned again and scrubbed at her eyes. "You needn't put yourself out to that extent. I suppose as nice as this has been, it may be time for the Hero of Ferelden to pay a visit to the Inquisition after all. I'll just have to manage things carefully."

"Is it so terrible a thing, then, that it requires careful management?"

She nudged him, and he stood to give her room to rise. "The Inquisition has far too much Grey Warden support already," she said.

She even looked serious.

"Are you saying we aren't worthy of such support?"

She began unbraiding her hair, combing her fingers through it. It was still wet, he noted, waving where it had been constrained. Loose, it hung past her hips. The sight fascinated him. Not many women outside the nobility had the time or luxury to maintain long hair. Leliana, Cassandra, even the Inquisitor had short hair. Many Circle mages had left their hair long, but they had little to do with combat. Or hadn't, anyway. Neria evidently hadn't cut hers when she'd become a Warden.

"I'm saying the goal of the Inquisition is not the goal of the Wardens," she said, pragmatic and practical. "Of course we should have helped with the darkspawn, and did. And Corypheus himself was a Grey Warden concern, being darkspawn. But the rifts? The Templars? Those are not our concern."

"The rifts threatened all of Thedas," he said, frowning at her. "And the Templars slaughtered hundreds, perhaps thousands."

She shrugged, a rise and lift of one slender shoulder.

It took him aback. "You cannot possibly be so cavalier as to dismiss the deaths of all those people."

That made her look at him, made her face his dismay. Her surprise was clear, her gaze empty of any guilt or remorse. Then indignation.

"Have you any idea how many Grey Wardens died in Ferelden and Orlais both, trailing after the Inquisition's banners?" she asked. "You've simply no notion at all how few are left."

"They are warriors," he said. "Warriors give their lives so that others may live. I do not discount the sacrifice, but –"

"And so you should not!" she snapped at him. "What do you suppose would happen now were another archdemon to rise in fact? Had best pray to the Maker if one does, it does so in Rivain or Nevarra, because neither Orlais nor Ferelden have the bodies to withstand one! And with two lands so easily fallen, the rest of Thedas may well be unable to resist a horde that size.

"You have been to the wastes around Adamant, Cullen. That was once a land as green and fertile as any Thedas has ever known. Now it is dead, dead for all time. That is what a blight is, that is what it does. And you ask me about a few thousand people? I don't give a damn about them!"

He took a step back from her vehemence.

"People will rebuild," she said. "They will make new homes and raise litters of children and spread. The task of the Grey Wardens is to make certain they have a world on which to do it. Assuming your idiot Inquisitor doesn't wipe out the last of the Wardens making them chase down addled Templars that anyone can kill."

"Enough!" he said, slashing a hand through the air.

She opened up her mouth but he stopped her with a single finger, took a step toward her. "No, you've had your say, Commander of the Grey, now you will listen to the Commander of the Inquisition."

Her eyes spat sparks that were not quite literal, but there was a certain hum to the air he chose to ignore. "What dream world do you imagine Corypheus had in mind for Thedas? Demons flooded the land, slaughtering and murdering their way through Ferelden and Orlais and who knows how many other lands, yes into Nevarra and Rivain! There was no way to stop them. Kill one, four more come through a rift.

"And there is one person, one on the face of the world, who has the power to stop them. So forgive us, O Grey Warden, if we asked your paltry hundred to pick up some of the slack while our one did the work."

She drew in an angry breath, but he silenced her again. "Not once did Evelyn set your people a task to which they were not suited. Not once did she ask them to fight except against darkspawn. It was your people who fell prey to Corypheus, your Orlesian counterpart who let herself be swayed by him. The Inquisition was there for the Wardens, now you can damned well be there for us!"

"Are you quite through, Commander Cullen?"

He folded his arms and stared down at her. "Quite, Warden-Commander."

"Then if you'll excuse me, I have a message to write. I'd ask for your assistance but I'd hate to place myself further in your debt."

"Neria, that is unfair. And unworthy of you."

"Perhaps you should have considered your words more carefully, then, before framing this in terms of debt and obligation. I've no more time to waste on you, Cullen. Help me, or get out of my way."

He stepped aside with an exaggerated bow, sweeping an arm toward the ladder. "Holy Andraste forfend I should impede you by making you sleep and eat a decent meal."

"I'll be down after I have dressed. I'll require paper and ink, if that will not strain your resources terribly."

"The Inquisition is pleased to render any assistance it can to the Grey Wardens."

He stalked to the ladder and was only sorry there was no door he could slam. But he would not leave his office, would not abandon the battleground to her. Instead, he spent his time going over the roster of commanders, deciding who would be fit to lead smaller squadrons. He could leave up the actual division to his sub-commanders. Perhaps some could be taken from the list of those he had thought to send with Divine Victoria.

He didn't look up when she finally descended. He kept looking down at the papers strewn across the surface, fists bracing his weight on the desk. Until she didn't speak, and didn't approach. Then he looked up without raising his head.

Impact.

Her hair had been braided, but only the last half or so, an intricate intertwining of black hair and silver cord that draped over her shoulder and bared the upswept points of her ears. Her hair and the silver-threaded black cloth armor she wore belted and strapped over her blue shift emphasized the paleness of her skin. She seemed too ethereal to survive in the direct glare of the slats of sunlight slicing through the arrow slits. Except for her eyes. Those were as vibrant, as alive with color as the stained glass behind him.

She met his gaze, cool and distant as the farthest peak of the mountains. Sometime in the intervening years, she had learned how to make someone feel his own mortality, his own dirty grubbiness as a mere human creature. She lived on a different plane, it seemed, one that would shatter into a thousand separate dreams if it were ever to be contaminated with the touch of so common a thing as a man.

It certainly would have worked on him, if he hadn't once had to chastise her for snitching a bowl of cookie dough from the kitchens.

So he stiffened his spine, sternly told his guts to stop genuflecting, and nodded toward a corner of the desk where a pot of ink, a quill, and several sheets of paper had been set aside.

She sat, resting her staff to one side, and picked up the quill.

He returned to his lists of names.

When he realized she had put her quill down after several long minutes of not writing anything, he also became aware that he had just put all the commanders right back with their original companies. It was, he reflected, probably the longest he'd ever taken to re-establish the status quo.

He glanced over at her.

She was staring at him.

After a moment, she offered him a faint, sad smile, a shrug so imperceptible it didn't even shift her clothing.

He hung his head, an inaudible chuff of wry amusement, then looked back up and shrugged as well.

This time her smile was warm and real, and she picked her quill back up to begin writing with a new enthusiasm. Cullen looked back down at his lists. Groups of twenty or so. Thirty, perhaps, he could do. Thirty would be better.

He took up his own quill and wrote notations, making swift progress.


	5. Chapter 5

As it had to sooner or later, the door opened.

Neria didn't turn to look. Although the odds heavily favored an Inquisition soldier being the one to open the door, she knew it wasn't. She knew it wouldn't be. That simply wasn't the life she led.

So she didn't look up from her letter, just signed her name to it and blew a gentle stream of air over it to dry the ink faster. Across the desk, she saw Cullen straighten. He was as quiet as she, and Neria wondered if he had had the same understanding that she'd had. Their tiny retreat, this mini-idyll, could not last.

Perhaps he would forgive her for making it last a few seconds longer.

She looked up at him, studied his expression. His jaw was tight, set, but his expression was otherwise calm and composed. He was, his body language said, prepared to accept the consequences of action rightly taken, with no apology offered.

She knew the posture, the expression so well because it was one she herself had used often. Your son did not survive his training with the Wardens, but his sacrifice was necessary and he will be honored for it. Yes, I ordered your daughter into the cavern where she died, and would do so again. Even with this outcome, I would do nothing differently.

Well, she thought with a flash of whimsy, perhaps his expression wasn't quite that serious.

Still, it was time. Neria looked over her shoulder.

Leliana stood just inside the doorway, a box in her hands. It was battered but intact, the wood scarred here and there, the metal bindings not as shiny as they ought to have been. Where a lock would have been on any other box there was just a flat, thick slab of metal, the rampant griffon etching visible even from where she sat.

Neria's heart sank.

She rose from her chair and crossed to Leliana.

"You're the secret," Leliana said.

She had once been a Bard of Orlais; her voice was trained and perfected. There were hints of pain in those three words that a lesser speaker would have mishandled. These were delicate barbs formed of nothing more than air and intent that nonetheless struck deeply.

Neria nodded.

"A messenger brought this," Leliana said. "They said to give it to the Commander of the Grey. Evelyn thought they meant Blackwall, but I knew."

And hoped I was wrong, she said-unsaid. And had to come and see for myself.

Neria set her hands on the box, her fingertips brushing Leliana's. Now she looked up at her friend's face. She saw no accusations, no anger. Only a softened hurt and the patience of the shadows.

She let go of the box to wrap her arms around Leliana, and felt the bard – the spymaster, the Most Holy – hug her in return.

They held each other in silence. Of a height, they fit perfectly together, their heads side by side, fiery red and midnight black.

"Come and see me before you go," Leliana whispered, kissing her cheek and pressing the box into her hands. Then she left, shutting the door quietly behind her.

She stared at the door for a few moments before turning with the box and setting it on the desk.

Cullen said nothing about Leliana's visit. "What's that?" he asked.

Sighing, Neria traced the upper edge of the box with her fingers. "A message," she said. "May I borrow a dagger?"

She didn't look up to see his expression, but took the knife when he handed it to her. Like any warrior, he kept his weapons sharp. A tap of her fingertip on the tip of the blade was all she needed to draw blood. She smeared the blood on the metallic front of the box and heard the click of the lock disengaging.

"Blood magic?" Cullen asked.

Neria wiped the blade clean on her robe and handed the dagger back, sucking on her finger. "After a fashion," she answered.

"A cup?" Cullen asked, peering curiously as she lifted the lid. "Someone sent you a cup?"

"No," she said, her voice gone hollow and sad. "A chalice."

"What does it mean?"

"It means Warden-Commander Surana has indeed come to Skyhold."

Mercifully, no one insisted on a formal presentation. Instead, they met in a long room off the main hall. There was one desk backed with bookshelves and a wide seating area with a fireplace.

Only she and the Inquisitor sat, though a few other chairs had been brought over. Leliana stood near one of the pillars that lined the stone floor opposite the fireplace. A stern woman with a scarred face and close-cropped black hair stood near the fireplace, arms folded, staring at Neria. Behind the Inquisitor's chosen chair was a Qunari, though an odd one. He was the first of the people Neria had ever seen with facial hair. Next to the Inquisitor was the Antivan she had learned was the Inquisition's ambassador.

Cullen stood between their chairs and to one side. Neria wondered if his posture was deliberate.

"I'm only sorry you didn't come forward sooner," the Inquisitor said. "There was no need for you to hide out in that drafty tower it pleases Cullen to call a home."

Neria smiled, warm and polite. When she spoke, her voice was low and soft, encouraging listeners to be quiet in order to hear her, to lean in toward her. "I apologize for the deception, Your Worship. It was necessary that my presence here remain secret for a time."

"For a time. But no longer?"

"I've had a message from Weisshaupt. The Wardens, as you must know, are in need of new recruits. We hoped the Inquisition would permit us use of Skyhold for a few days that we might assess any who come forward."

"Of course, with my blessing. So to speak. We owe the Wardens much." The Inquisitor shifted a bit in her seat. "I had wondered if you were here for Blackwall."

Neria let her smile slip. "Thom Rainier."

"The Inquisition knows him as Blackwall."

"The Grey Wardens do not."

Even the crackling of the fire seemed subdued, uncomfortable, as if it didn't want to draw attention to itself.

Neria waited, hands folded loosely on her lap, spine straight.

"I have told him," the Inquisitor said, steepling her fingers in front of her face, "that his past life is over, and will be left behind."

Neria nodded her approval. "And so it shall be. If he wishes still to join the Grey Wardens, we will honor the choice of our fallen brother. But he will abandon the name he has borrowed and leave its deeds behind to the Warden he would honor. Warden Rainier will write his own history."

At that, the Inquisitor relaxed and smiled. It abruptly occurred to Neria how young she was. Though she supposed this Trevelyan girl wasn't any younger than she herself had been when she and Alistair had fought past an ogre to light a signal fire.

"Then there's no problem," she said. "I suppose Blackwall is pacing outside and trying not to look like he's pacing?"

"Something like that, Inquisitor," Cullen said, amused.

"Of course he is. Honestly, Warden-Commander, if you can get him to do something about that great bushy hair of his, I'd consider it a personal favor."

"I'm sure the Wardens can scrounge up such a thing as a comb, Your Worship."

"And please stop calling me that," Evelyn sighed. "Leliana and Josephine will insist on it, but Evelyn will do, or Inquisitor if we must be formal."

She stood. "Well then! That's a bit of excitement and just when things had begun to seem so terribly dull. I'm off to continue making formal farewells to our departing guests. Sorry, Leliana, but I'm sure they'll want to speak to the Divine as well. Duty before pleasure. Warden-Commander, Ser Morris will see you settled in appropriate quarters. If you need anything at all, simply mention it and it will be brought."

Neria rose when Evelyn did. "Thank you, Inquisitor."

Evelyn walked out, dragging Josephine and Leliana with her, though the latter not without a backward glance. Behind them walked the Qunari.

That left her with Cullen and the woman she assumed had to be the former Seeker and right hand of Divine Justinia. "Quite a personality," Neria commented.

"She does have a way of simply taking over a situation," Cullen said.

"I will begin letting the soldiers know that you will be recruiting," Cassandra said. "There will be many who will doubtless be interested in meeting with you. I—do not know what you will require…"

The problem was never finding a space to do it, but disposing of the bodies of those who died. Even those who failed the Joining were considered Grey Wardens still and deserving of proper burial. But she had incinerated corpses before, could do so again. Away from prying eyes and hearts that would not understand.

"Privacy," she answered. "And space."

"Perhaps the prison level?" Cullen suggested. "It's not the loveliest room of the keep, but it is secure and large."

"Let's go and see it," Neria said, nodding. "It may be just the thing."

Cassandra bowed a little, stiff and awkward, a strange motion from a warrior born and bred. She left the room, abandoning it to Neria and Cullen.

She looked at him, then sighed and relaxed.

He smiled a little, another crook of that scar she was beginning to find charming. "I hardly recognized you," he said. "So poised and calm."

"Necessities of the office," she said. "I'm sure your Inquisitor is someone else entirely as well, in private."

"No," he said, looking at the door. "Evelyn is always herself. Now."

Neria surprised herself with a twinge of jealousy. There was admiration in his tone, and something wistful. Ridiculous. Of course he'd had other infatuations. He'd had lovers aplenty, no doubt. She had no claim on his affections at all, let alone an exclusive one.

"The prison?" she said, cool and calm, sliding into her Warden-Commander persona again.

"Of course." He gestured to the door, and she proceeded him out into the hall.

Thom Rainier was easy to pick out among those who were trying not to look like they were hovering, if only by the bristling beard and relatively untamed hair. The way his eyes lit, fear and hope and anguish, told her enough.

Neria walked to him as if no one else existed in the hall, trying to see in him what Blackwall had seen. She had known the Warden, though not well; he had been a man of intense passions and quiet determination. And he had never been mistaken about the quality of a candidate, not to her knowledge.

"You're the Warden-Commander?" Rainier asked, his voice as rough and unrefined as the rest of him. "Is it time, then?"

"Soon," she promised him. "I will fulfill the task of Warden Blackwall. It is still your wish to join the Grey Wardens?"

"Whether it is or not, that is my sentence."

She shook her head a little. "Would that I could free you from that sentence and have you come free and glad to the grey, but the Wardens are in no position to turn away any likely candidate. And if Blackwall chose you, there is no doubting your suitability. Your skills as a warrior are proven and much desired in our ranks."

"Look," he said, "I don't know if you've heard but I'm not exactly a good man. I don't know if I am what you think I am."

The admission cost him, in pride and confidence. It was a sacrifice she knew how to honor, and she set a slender hand on his forearm, felt the strength of him. "A Grey Warden is not a shining beacon of perfection," she said. "We must, at times, make decisions that are ugly and brutal. We need those who can make such decisions without flinching."

After a moment, she took her hand away. "Commander Cullen is helping me find a suitable location for the ritual. When I have selected one, I will send for you."

He bowed low to her, one arm across his chest.

When she turned back to Cullen, her glance passed over those in the hall, and she saw she had judged her audience accurately. They were silent and staring. Even Cassandra.

Did the Seeker mean to request to join the Wardens, Neria wondered? Her scrutiny was not entirely that of a protective guardian. There was something else behind that gaze, but she could not yet tease it out. Perhaps in time…

"Kitten!" a familiar voice called into the quiet, attracting every eye. Neria looked over to see Varric strolling up. "I heard you were in town. Don't tell me you were going to sneak away without saying hello."

Cassandra stalked to them, fury crackling from every pore. "You know him?" she demanded of Neria, pointing to Varric.

He winked at her, where Cassandra couldn't see it.

Laughter sparkled in her. "Varric and I have traded stories long into the night before," she said. "I value his company." She bent a little to kiss his cheek. "How long has it been? I'd heard in Kirkwall that you were with the Inquisition now."

"Oh, you know how it is. The Seeker there wanted an autograph and wouldn't take no for an answer."

Cassandra chewed on her anger. "You little shit! You know the Hero of Ferelden as well? And never said anything?"

"Now Seeker, you never asked if I knew her, and I didn't know where she was any more than the rest of you did."

Cullen drew her away, leaving Varric to fence with Cassandra's angry words. "You're terrible," he murmured.

"I like him," she said back just as softly. "He has a good heart under all that fur."

"And Kitten?"

"I have no idea; he just started calling me that."

He walked her through the hall and toward the large doors at the end. "He's a liar and a cheat," Cullen said, "and yes, he has a very good heart. Evelyn treasures him."

Amused, Neria glanced sidelong and up at him. "If that was a warning, you needn't worry. He'd make a terrible Warden."

Cullen's laughter rang off the stone walls.

"You, on the other hand, seem good raw material. Oh, you're a bit shining armor and blazing sword, but we've worked with worse. You just need all that brightness knocked off you to turn you into a proper Warden."

"Oh no you don't," he said, leading her down some stairs and across the courtyard to a sunken doorway. "I have my place in the world and I quite like it, thank you."

She walked down the steps into the prison level and tried not to think about what he said.

The prison was not in the best shape. It was dark and damp, and a door in the far wall led to another section of the prison that was entirely open to the air. The floor had fallen away, leaving only a horseshoe-shaped layer of cells and stone.

"Like I said," Cullen said, "not lovely. But secure and large."

And made of stone, so her fires would not be a risk. Open to the air, for whisking away ash and bone. "It's perfect," she said softly.

She stared at the open sky.

Cullen cleared his throat. "Would there be any other special requirements?"

"No," she said, turning back to him. "Only someone at the door to keep out the curious, someone trustworthy not to enter regardless of what they hear."

He tried to contain his own curiosity and nodded. "I'll see it done," he promised.

"Tomorrow," she said. "Tomorrow is soon enough to begin."

"All right. Why don't I show you to your rooms, then? I think Ser Morris will have had time to have had them freshened."

"Thank you," she said, walking away from the mountain and into the darkness of the prison.

One good thing about her own rooms: No Cullen to bully her into eating when she sent back her tray to the kitchen largely untouched. And he wasn't there to argue her into resting; she had slept more in the past two days than in longer than she could remember. Which was probably why she was awake this late, wandering the ramparts, warm Warden's cloak drawn close over her shift and soft boots.

There were guards posted, all alert Cullen would doubtless be gratified to know, all moving with quiet efficiency. They were never out of eyesight of each other, and moved in no regular patterns that she could discern. They greeted her politely, then went back to their duties.

Or perhaps they were just trying to impress her. She would have to mention to someone the likely upswing in injuries sustained during practice bouts turned too intense. Never failed.

She heard a door open and glanced down the wall. Cullen stepped out onto the ramparts and leaned against the crenellations, looking out over the mountain.

He looked worn, more wan than mere moonlight could account for. His hair was damp, and he hadn't bothered to put on a robe over his night clothes. They clung to his chest, drying in the cold mountain air as she watched.

"Cullen?" she asked, walking down the wall toward him.

He straightened abruptly. "Neria," he said. "I'm… What are you doing up?"

"I'm standing on a wall wondering why you're up." But she knew the victim of a nightmare when she saw one. There wasn't a Warden who didn't have them, wasn't plagued in their sleep by darkspawn whispers. Even the youngest among them would hear them from time to time. It was only as they aged, as the Taint spread in them, that it became constant.

Neria heard it every few nights.

"The Tower?" she asked quietly, standing close so her voice wouldn't carry.

He nodded, once. "It's… not just that."

"You've had enough ugly experiences for any three lifetimes," she said. "It's to be expected."

When he looked back out at the mountain, his face was set, grim and haunted. He hadn't shaved; his scruff had grown out, shadowing his jawline. Her fingertips tingled, but she kept them at her side.

"I stopped taking lyrium," he said. "Not long after the Inquisition formed."

Her heart contracted. She had seen the results of lyrium withdrawal. "Oh, Cullen."

"I keep telling myself it will get better. It has gotten better. But sometimes... Some nights."

She set her hand on his thin sleeve. "Come inside," she said.

"Every night, truthfully," he said. "Dreams. Nightmares. Usually the tower. Usually you."

"Please, Cullen, you're not dressed to be out here."

His brow knit. "But not last night," he said. "Not last night. I wonder if that's why tonight seems so particularly bad. The contrast."

He wasn't hearing her. She wasn't even sure if he knew she was there anymore. She didn't have a great furry cloak to wrap around him, but there was little doubt that standing on an open rampart while damp with sweat was an excellent way to catch some illness or another.

"I think it was you," he said. "At first, I didn't sleep at all. I kept thinking about you, there, actually there with me."

"Cullen…"

"And then I woke up, holding you. I had slept. And—"

Neria ducked under his arm and kissed him.

Just a soft kiss, something simple and light, a brush of her lips over his, but it silenced him as effectively as a slap.

He stared at her.

"I thought one set of embarrassing revelations was enough for one lifetime," she said with as easy and relaxed a tone as she could manage.

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't seem to know I was here."

"Of course I knew. I just didn't want to go inside yet."

Her turn to stare. "Oh," she said. "Well. That makes this quite awkward then, doesn't it?"

She felt his hand on the small of her back. "Not so awkward as all that," he said.

Heat spread out from the flat of his hand, warming her skin.

"You get used to it," he said, looking down at her.

Somehow she wasn't sure she'd ever get used to him touching her, holding her.

"The cold," he clarified. "After awhile, it just feels normal. But you're cold. You're too thin for mountain life."

But rather than usher her inside, he slid his other arm around her and pulled her closer, wrapping her in the warmth of his body.

"This is a bad idea," she murmured.

"Probably," he agreed, looking down at her, "but I can't come up with any better ones at the moment."

Amusement lit her eyes again. "We could just go inside."

"Inside? The two of us alone? That's your better idea?"

"Well, our record so far for that is positive. We've only had one screaming match."

He shook his head, serious suddenly. "I don't want this," he said, decisive. His words stung, but he didn't release her. Instead, he raised a hand to her face, traced the line of her cheekbone with one thumb. "I don't want games and hints and wondering. I don't want to find out again I've waited too long to say something."

"Don't."

"Too late for that."

"I can't—" She stopped herself. "This can't become anything, Cullen. I don't have anything to give you."

"Do you have tonight?"

That stilled her protests. She ducked her head away from the directness of his gaze. "Would it be all right if I said I don't know yet?" she asked. "I'm not… not toying with you, I promise."

"Well, I wouldn't say it's all right, necessarily. But I'm not demanding an answer. I can wait until you give me one."

She shook her head slightly. All his answers were perfect. The night was perfect, the way he held her… All she wanted to do was give in. But the world waited, regardless of what happened between them.

He wouldn't be her first lover since Alistair; she had never been that sort of ascetic. Even at the first, there had been Zevran before Alistair, before she had recognized that he meant more to her than just a flirtation.

After Alistair, there had been no one for a time. Almost a year until Nathaniel, the two of them brought together by shared pain and anger at the world and a Grey Warden's understanding of the impermanence of any relationship. They had been lovers, though, momentary dalliances, just bodies and pleasure and separate ways in the morning.

Cullen… Cullen would never be that. He was too much a part of her history, had played too great a role in who she was. And now he was here, on this frozen mountain, all his youthful insecurities burned away, a seasoned warrior, warm and solid and saying everything she needed to hear.

Her eyes narrowed.

He blinked. "What?"

"Step back, please."

He did as she asked, releasing her and taking a step back. "Neria?"

Slowly, searching, she looked around, felt for the flaw. There was always a mistake somewhere. The banners were proper, still the Inquisition symbol. The stars were as they should be. The season was correct. The wind bit at her skin with a thousand tiny fangs as it properly ought.

"What is it?"

He didn't sound mystified. He was looking around, scanning the area as she did. His hand clenched for a sword that wasn't there. He was still in his night clothes.

"If I'm wrong," she said, "I pray you'll forgive me. But I have to know, and this is the fastest way."

"What's the—"

The burst of magic that hit him was as weak as she could manage, far weaker than the same attack would have been if she'd had her staff. Still, she could do considerable damage with nothing more than magic and will.

This blast only knocked him backward against the far side of the ramparts.

Shouts of alarm and booted feet running toward her. She fought against the urge to call up a sturdier defense, more potent spells.

"Stand down!" Cullen bellowed.

Cullen said it.

_Cullen._

He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward his office, slinging her inside with easy strength, leaving her to catch her balance against his desk.

"Explain yourself," he said, clipped and hard.

"I thought… For a moment, I thought perhaps I was in the Fade."

"The Fade?" he repeated, incredulous. "Why in the Maker's name would you think that?"

"It's not always easy to tell!" she said, rubbing her arm where his fingers had dug into her skin. "If it were, do you suppose so many mages would fall prey so easily? Demons reach into your memories, pull from them to create the Fade-world around you. Sometimes you can only tell after all the tiny mistakes pile up, and by then it's often too late. I had to know, Cullen."

"To know what? That I'm not a de—" He stopped and eyed her. Slowly his anger faded, replaced by a growing smile and a certain smugness that made her squirm.

"You thought I was demon," he said, walking toward her.

"If you had been, you'd have responded to the attack," she said stiffly.

"But what sort of demon, I wonder?" He cocked his head, looking down at her. "Not a Fear demon, not like that. Rage hardly seems likely."

She shifted and glanced at the door, wondering if she could get past him. "You needn't make such a fuss about it."

"You thought I was a _Desire_ demon."

"Oh, do shut up."

But he didn't shut up. He set the palms of his hand on his desk, one on either side of her, and leaned into her. "Now why would you have thought this was a Fade-dream wrought by a Desire demon?" he asked.

"It was just— There wasn't any—" Thinking was rapidly becoming both impossible and superfluous. "You were sweaty and in your night clothes."

"And naturally you thought I was a Desire demon."

"You weren't cold! It has happened before. Not with you," she added hastily as his eyebrows quirked higher.

"So you tested your theory."

"Yes."

"And I passed."

"Yes."

"Then it's my turn, I think, to test a theory."

He kissed her.

Not for him, the slight brush of lips that hinted at possibilities. This kiss was deep and slow, a kiss that tasted, tested, taught him the sweetness of her mouth, that showed her the heat of his lips and tongue.

She didn't protest when he unfastened her cloak and slid it back off her shoulders. He did protest when she slid her hands under his shirt, a hiss of indrawn breath, his muscles flinching away.

Her chuckle broke the kiss. "Cold fingers?" she asked.

"Very," he replied, taking her hands between his.

"They'd warm up faster if I were in bed," she said.

Serious now, he kissed her fingertips. "Are you sure, Neria?"

"No," she said, backing toward the ladder. "But let's find out."


	6. Chapter 6

He felt her in his arms and woke smiling. Eyes still closed, he nuzzled the top of her head, inhaled the scent of her, that deep forest remnant that clung to her skin and hair. Soap, he knew, it was simply the soap she used but it smelled to him of travel and long trails that wandered forever.

Not anymore. He'd find her a new soap. One that smelled like rocks. Well, perhaps not rocks. Skyhold, though. Mountains. He'd find her mountain soap.

Carefully he pulled away from her enough so he could see her, could watch her sleep. Sunlight didn't favor her, he decided, losing some of his smile. Sunlight was harsh, revealing the shadows under her eyes, the thin traces of veins under too pale skin. Moonlight, that was her element. She had glowed with it, her skin silver and shining above him, even to the delicate pink of her areolae around her nipples. Against all that radiance, the black braid of her hair had hung like a curl of shadow drifting around her.

Next time, he told himself, next time he'd pull that braid apart and lay her down on the curtain of her hair. He imagined her body silver as a moonbeam across the midnight black of her hair, and slid his hand up her bare hip.

He shouldn't wake her, but…

She needed to rest, yet…

He struggled with himself, tried to remind himself that he was supposedly a man grown. Surely if he had refused the call of lyrium, he could control this urge as well. The desire to take. To claim. To mark her as his.

Her eyelashes fluttered, parted. She looked at him and smiled.

That was invitation enough.

He forgot to undo her braid.

* * *

"You're going to have to let me out of this bed sooner or later," she murmured against his neck, tilting her head back to kiss his earlobe.

"I'm fairly certain I don't," he replied, stretching carefully to avoid dislodging the tangle of her limbs around and over his. "I'm the Commander. The only person who gets to overrule me is the Inquisitor and Evelyn will take my side."

"I can overrule you," she said without moving. "And I have work to do."

"Commander of the Grey does not trump Commander of the Inquisition, not in Skyhold."

She yawned. "Trumps everything. I have treaties that prove it."

"During a blight. This isn't a blight. And you haven't any treaties with the Inquisition."

"Now you're just adding things to my to-do list."

He chuckled. "Fine. I'll let you up if you promise to eat breakfast before you start stealing my best soldiers for the Wardens."

For all her talk about needing to rise, she was the one who gave a petulant sound of protest and pulled a pillow over her head when he stood.

He teased a finger down the exposed curve of her leg. "Stay there, then," he said. "I'll bring us something to eat from the kitchens."

She said something under the pillow.

"What?" he asked, reaching out to pluck the pillow away.

Neria looked up at him over the pale stretch of one arm, her sleepy eyes blue and green and sated and hungry all at the same time. Strands of black hair had loosened from her braid, swept over her face in silken caresses. Sooty lashes dipped once, then opened again. "Stay with me," she said.

But he could also see the bones of her shoulder blades against her skin, the sharpness of her jaw, and even the line of fragile ribs up her sides. He bent to kiss her. "Have mercy on a mere mortal, Warden," he said. "Let me get my strength back."

She wrinkled her nose at him and snatched the pillow back. "Fine. But hurry up or I'll start without you."

He hurried.

He used the courtyard entrance to the kitchens, bypassing the furor of the hall and the press of bodies. Skyhold was emptying after the celebrations but slowly, and sometimes it seemed as many supplies were coming in as people were leaving. Not that the kitchen was any less crowded.

Cook would have chased out most intruders into his domain, but Cullen took full advantage of his rank. He ducked in and around the workers, unable to escape a battlefield comparison, and wondered briefly if he oughtn't send soldiers in two or three at a time to practice their footwork. He grabbed an egg pie without checking the contents and dropped it in a basket near the door, adding to his stash some biscuits and a jug of milk.

Before anyone could object to his thievery, he slipped back out into the courtyard and almost spilled the milk all over the Most Holy, Divine Victoria. She was grinning at him like a cat with the canary still between its paws.

He juggled the basket, and got control of the jug without spilling much of it on the ground. "Leliana!" he said. "Or should I say Her Divine Holiness?"

"Either will do," she said, tipping her head to one side.

"Is there… something I can help you with?"

"I've been to see the Warden-Commander," she said, "but it seems she is not in her rooms. I wondered to myself, where could she be this early?"

He debated playing her off, but decided his own grin would give him away. "When I left her, she was quite comfortable and possibly on her way back to sleep," he said.

She chuckled, low and soft, and reached out to take the milk from him. "Good," she said.

Leliana walked slowly back across the courtyard, and he kept pace. "I worry about her," the Divine continued. "Since Alistair died, she hasn't been the same."

"So they were lovers." Not something he wanted to think about.

"More than that. They were quite in love. He had asked her to marry him, before the Landsmeet. Before he was made king and agreed to marry Anora."

That, he hadn't heard. He frowned and tried to ignore his discomfort.

"She said yes, of course. They were going to wait until after the blight, thinking they'd have time. Then he ended things so he would not be false to Anora." She sighed. "That was hard on them both. When he died atop Fort Drakon, she was… different."

"Were you there, then?"

"In Denerim, yes, but helping secure the gates." They walked in silence for a time, Leliana hugging the pitcher to her chest, staring at her memories. "We thought they had all died and went looking for them. When we got to the top of the Fort, she was kneeling beside Alistair's… Beside Alistair. She wouldn't listen to any of us, wouldn't speak. Sten finally just carried her away."

They climbed the stone stairs to the wall near his office. "She was barely uttering two words together when the celebrations started. Anora kept dragging her to parades and parties whenever one of us wasn't around to watch her. Detestable woman. She did it for revenge, of course."

"Revenge?"

"Alistair killed her father in front of her. Anora hated them both. It's mutual now."

None of this was as he had thought it, as he had heard the stories. He had always believed Anora and Neria to be friends. "And Neria let her? That seems most unlike her."

"It was," Leliana confirmed. "When she finally roused from her apathy, she was so angry. She hated Ferelden, hated people. It was terrifying to see. Even Anora became uncomfortable with her and sent her to Amaranthine. After that, I lost track of her. Everyone did."

They walked up the stairs together silently. Leliana stopped at the top. "I only wonder if you both see each other clearly."

"What do you mean?"

She handed the milk back to him. "I mean you are not her innocent, naïve Templar to blush and run at her jests. And she is not the simple mage girl who left your tower."

"Of that, I am certain," he said. "I will take care of her, Leliana."

"I hope the world lets you."

She walked away, leaving him free to go inside. In the office, he made certain to lock all the doors. "Breakfast, if you're hungry."

"I suspect even if I'm not hungry, you mean to make me eat," she called down.

He smiled and set the food out on his desk. "I do, so resign yourself to it and come down here."

"You have a most peculiar fascination with my eating habits, Commander," she said as she descended the ladder. "It's a little unsettling, really."

"If you ate enough to keep from starving, I wouldn't need to force you to eat."

"I eat when I'm hungry."

"Then you're not hungry enough." He sliced through the pie with a fork and set a chunk on a napkin in front of her. "You're skin and bones."

"Last night you seemed to have no complaints."

He leaned in to kiss her, enjoying knowing he had the right to do so. Just because he could, he kissed her again. "And still have none. But if I'm going to wear you out every night, you'll need good food to keep up with me."

"Every night, is it?"

"Every night you're here." He pointed to the food. "Eat."

"You're terribly bossy."

But she ate a bite, and he took satisfaction in that as well. "Yes, well, we Desire demons are like that."

She dropped the fork and covered her eyes with one hand. "You never intend to let me live that down, do you?" she said.

Grinning, he took the fork and used the edge to cut off another bite he then lifted it to her lips. "Not a chance," he said. "I intend to try and provoke that reaction again, in fact. Have you so aroused and befuddled you think I cannot possibly be real."

She snapped her teeth closed on the fork.

Cullen chuckled and let go of the fork, leaving it in her mouth. "As long as you eat, you can glare at me all you like."

She took a drink of milk, giving him a speculative sidelong glance as she licked the moustache away.

"What?" he finally asked. He really should have gotten some tea.

"You seem different today," she said.

"Well, there are these scratches on my back that—"

She laughed. "Not that, you fixated child." She shook her head. "Or maybe it is, I don't know. Are you always this giddy the morning after?"

He started to answer, another glib response, but her question did make him realize she had a point. He felt different. Lighter, somehow. Even his head didn't ache. "Maybe it's you," he said, brushing it off.

"Perhaps," she said, nudging a bit of crust around. "Living out a mutual fantasy will do that."

That stopped him. He watched her eat another bite, tiny though it was. "You… used to fantasize about me?"

"Of course," she said, blithely unaware of his reaction. "Those curly blond locks and big brown eyes? The stern Templar who often showed up only to chastise me?"

He started to rise from his chair, then stopped. "Oh no you don't," he said, seating himself again. "Eat your breakfast, mage."

"Damn," she muttered, poking at her egg pie with her fork.

He chuckled again.

When Cullen went out to look over the fighters and confirm his assignments, she went to meet with the mages, saying she'd be by later to look over any soldiers who might want to join the Wardens. He would have thought any who did would come to him first, but his was an all-volunteer army. He had no right to keep anyone who wanted to go with her, especially not after the Inquisitor had given her approval. Still, he did wonder how much rearranging of personnel he would have to do when she was done.

He found he didn't have the heart to deny them their need to show off. Even though the morning's practices had come to a screeching halt after the first two serious injuries, permitting him time for a scathing lecture.

"Defense is constant," he said, voice ringing as he paced down the rows of exhausted soldiers, none of whom were unwounded, none of whom wanted to meet his eyes. "Offense is opportunistic. You wait. You watch. You live long enough to take the opening. Your shield is not just there to catch blows and hit with; used properly, you can maneuver your foe into being where you need him to be, when you need him to be. So act like you've had some damned training."

He stepped back. "Again," he said. "Stop trying to impress the Warden and try to impress me, for once."

"That kinda talk, no wonder you made commander," he heard behind him.

The bass rumble was a giveaway; he didn't have to turn. "Bull," he greeted without looking away from the melee. An alarming thought made him look back, frowning. "Is Evelyn all right?"

Bull nodded. "Getting a little sick of playing the diplomat, but she'll manage. Josephine won't let her step wrong."

"Is that why you're out here with me? Renaldo, that's a shield in your hand, not an infant. Use it!"

"See, I would've gone with 'not your dick in your hand'."

"Sergeants can get away with that," Cullen said, watching closely, "but commanders have to be more dignified."

"Good to know. Look, it's about your woman."

Contradictory feelings clashed inside him. Hearing anyone refer to Neria as his woman made him want to grab her and sling her over his shoulder. Hearing Bull talk about her at all made him want to stab the Qunari in the throat. "Oh?"

"Yeah. You know she's insane, right?"

That got his attention. He turned. "What?"

"The Warden. She's insane."

"Explain yourself, before I have to tell Evelyn why I cut your head off and threw your body over the wall."

"Down, boy," Bull said, still leaning against the wall, arms folded. "I've been watching her since she got here. Told Evelyn she can't be in the room alone with her. Oh, she plays a good act. She's got that mysterious elf shit down pat, knows how to lean on her history and that Warden thing so no one looks too deep. But trust me, it's all surface. Underneath that control is nothing but one long scream."

Cullen walked closer, one hand on his sword. "Your bullshit would be more believable if you knew anything about her at all."

"I know," he said. "The Arishok's pet bas saarebas? Everyone knows about her. But this is the first time I've gotten to see her for myself, and if I were still reporting to the Ariqun, I'd tell him he was right. She's crazy."

An inch of Cullen's sword cleared leather. "Stop talking, Qunari. Just because she's a free woman who doesn't crawl around after one of your kind like a slave—"

"It's not about that, Cullen," he said, serious. "She's insane. That's where Evelyn was headed if I hadn't stepped in. Too much pressure, too many deaths she blames herself for, too many bodies. You and me, we were raised on this. We came to command slowly, after we'd shown we could handle it. And look how many soldiers and commanders snap like old twigs."

He nodded his head behind him, horns sweeping toward the keep proper. "Evelyn wasn't raised to do anything but look good and ride a horse. They let her train with weapons to keep her out of trouble and because it's tradition; no one thought she'd see serious combat, but even she grew up with death. You gonna tell me that tower prepared your woman any better? How long was she kept sheltered in there, fifteen years or so? Since she was little, anyway. Now think about what the next year of her life was like after she left.

"If anyone had given a damn about that poor kid, they'd have slit that Grey Warden bastard's throat when he came for her."

Cullen didn't want to think about it, but he couldn't help it. His sword slid back into its scabbard. "I don't think you're right," he said slowly, "but if you are, why tell me?"

"Because you're still her Templar. If she blows, you're going to have the best shot at stopping her. I want to make sure you can do that, at least until I can talk Evelyn into getting her out of here."

He wanted to protest that she wasn't dangerous, but he of all people knew better. He had seen firsthand what could happen when a mage lost their hold on reality. He didn't want to think of her as another Uldred, another Anders, but the comparisons were there.

Too, Varric had said something similar. An air about her, he said. He lifted his head to answer Bull's charges.

He was gone.

Cullen spotted him crossing the courtyard, heading back into the keep. To Evelyn. To protect her.

He gestured the lieutenant over. "Keep them at it," he said. "Maybe if they wear themselves out here, they'll be too tired to act like idiots later."

"Yes, Commander."

He went looking for Neria.

He found her in the garden, sitting in the mud in front of one of the pots, with a fascinated Dorian crouching next to her. Her hand brushed upward in the air over the planter. Quietly, Cullen stepped closer. He could see the silver-blue leaves of Royal Elfroot unfurling, the vine growing straighter.

"Incredible," Dorian breathed, resting a hand on her knee to keep his balance.

Only the fact that he knew Dorian was gay kept him from separating that hand from the rest of his body. That, and the expression on Neria's face.

She was smiling just a little, relaxed, more at peace than he had seen her, at least around other people. Something in her had… unknotted. Loosened. For that, he would have forgiven Dorian for putting his tongue down her throat.

Maybe.

"A Dalish keeper taught it to me," she murmured.

"The Dalish can force-grow plants?"

She laughed, low and soft and easy. "No. You can't make a plant grow. You can just provide it what it needs. Do that, and it must grow. Do you see?"

"And you don't need to anchor the energy anywhere?"

"Why bother? It's going into the world around us. That is your anchor and your source both."

He shook his head. "I suspect I would need rather a better grounding in Dalish philosophy before I could attempt Dalish magic," he said ruefully.

"I could direct you toward a clan that isn't quite as hateful toward Shemlen," she offered.

"What? Travel about in a box, eating only what I could grub from the dirt? One couldn't even bathe properly."

"And what would you do if you ran out of your moustache pomade?"

He laughed. "Exactly so! My fears are justly founded." Dorian straightened, and Neria tilted her face back, smiling up at him. "Ah, and here is your guardian come to wrest you from my corrupting influence. Do tell him I have no intention of dragging you back to the Empire as one of my pet mages, will you?"

"But Dorian, that's exactly what you offered not twen—"

"Now now, let's not tell tales, Warden."

Her laughter was light and unfeigned. Cullen bent to lift her from the ground, swung her into his arms, her slender body light as eiderdown.

Even as he watched, the shadows crept back behind her eyes, making her smile fade to something softer, sadder.

He set her on her feet. "You have dirt on your cheek," he murmured, wiping a thumb over it.

"What are you doing here?" she said just as softly, leaving her hands on his biceps. "I thought you'd be with your men all afternoon."

"You smell better," he said, bending down to kiss her, relieved when she didn't prevent it, when she leaned into it. "And it's almost evening. Did he really offer to take you to Tevinter?"

"He did. But to be fair, only after I suggested he'd make a good Warden."

"Dorian?" he said with a laugh.

She looped her arm through his and made him walk with her around the gardens. "Don't underestimate him," she said, smiling a little. "Give him five years, he'd be running the entire thing."

"He turned you down?"

"And counteroffered," she confirmed. "But I've already been to Tevinter."

"You have? No wonder no one could find you."

"It's a big world," she said. "Easy for one skinny little elf girl to get lost, if she tries."

"I trust you're done trying."

She was silent for a moment and stepped into a gazebo at one end of the garden. "I don't know," she murmured. "How odd it would be if I were."

He turned her by her shoulders to face him. "The world has seen many wonders this age," he said. "Surely it could tolerate one more."

Her eyes – those eyes – searched his expression. Slowly, as if confused by it herself, she smiled. "Perhaps it could at that."

The sun sank below Skyhold's walls, darkness rising around them as they kissed in the gardens.

He left her only at her insistence. He would go and fetch Blackwall himself, he told her, retrieve the box that held the chalice, and bring both to her.

But the Warden's box wasn't the only one he pulled out.

His was more battered, but it had been crafted to survive. The glass vial once inside had broken, back when he'd sworn off lyrium, when Evelyn had agreed he should fight his addiction, when he'd thrown it at the wall. He had others. The tools inside were metal and wood, undamaged.

He lifted the lid. The flat wooden spoon, the sharp little knife. The grinder. The pouch. He had performed the motions so many times, even after so long without doing them, his hands remembered them.

A chunk of lyrium on the spoon, carve a slice free no larger than the nail on his smallest finger. Set the larger crystal aside and cut the sliver smaller. Open the grinder, drop the pieces inside, tapping the spoon to get the smallest crumbs. Attach the pouch to the end of the grinder. Turn the handle until the crystal is powder, caught in the pouch. Tap the grinder to clean it. Fill a vial with water and a drop of his own blood, pricked from his thumb with the knife. Squeeze the powder in careful puffs into the vial.

Cap.

Shake.

It glowed a soft, deceptive blue.

There was no arguing with her abilities. She had been dangerously powerful when she had left the tower, had spent years in combat and study both. She had sent him flying without gesture or word, simply willed it. What she was now, what she might become if provoked… Commander Cullen could not stop her. Could not save her.

But perhaps the Templar might.

He slid the vial into his belt and closed the lid on his box, hiding it away again. Tucking her box under one arm, he went in search of Blackwall.


	7. Chapter 7

Neria stared at the box in her hands and didn't move.

Someone had come and lit the torches in the courtyard. Golden light gleamed off the metal bindings on the box. A faint shimmer glittered across it, torchlight reflecting through the crystal of her staff, sheathed across her back, crystal and griffon riding over her shoulder.

"Neria?"

She didn't look up at Cullen. He had offered to stand guard himself. Part of her was comfortable with that; he was trustworthy, would not enter if she told him not to. But part of her wanted him well away from this. From what she was about to do to his friend. From what she might have to do to him.

"He's gone in?" she asked.

"Yes."

She heard the hesitation in him, the concern, but couldn't answer it. Slowly, she said, "Depending on what happens, we may leave the keep immediately to go to a Grey Warden stronghold. We won't come out, if we do. I'll take him through the hole in the castle wall."

"How— You can change him as well?"

She didn't answer that. It hurt to lie to him, but the truth would not be kinder. "See that no one disturbs us until morning."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know. Weisshaupt, perhaps." If the winds blew his ashes that far.

He shifted, fabric sliding across the plate armor he wore. "Will you be back?"

That was his question, the question he had to struggle to ask her. Hers were harder. Would he want her back, if he knew she had killed Blackwall? Would he want her back if – when – she killed the others he allowed her to take, to test? Never had she been a part of a Joining ritual where someone didn't die. Even at her own Joining. What had been his name? That thief, the pickpocket. The one who had said he'd watch her back in the Wilds if she would watch his.

Darrek? Darreth? She couldn't remember his name. She should be able to remember his name.

The box was so heavy.

"I'll try," she whispered.

He closed the gap between them in a single stride, cupped her jaw in his hand. He was warm. She wanted to lean into him. "That's not good enough," he said. "Promise me."

Now she looked up, knowing her mask was not set, knowing he would see through it. "I told you, Cullen. I don't have anything to give you. You asked for one night. Last night."

"Well, it's not enough. And don't make me out to be some clinging boy. It's not enough for you either."

His expression was thunderous, brow furrowed, line of his jaw set. She wanted to reach for him, surprised herself with how strong the urge was. It was easy to suppress; the desire to hold him, to kiss him, to rest herself against him was followed hard by shame and guilt. She loved Alistair. That had not changed.

So what, then, was this?

"Was he wearing armor?" she asked.

"What? Neria—"

"Armor, Commander. Was the candidate wearing armor?"

"No," he said, annoyed, still frowning at her. He dropped his hand away.

"Good." She drew a breath. "Well."

Before she could change her mind, she walked down the few steps to the sunken doorway and entered the prison.

Thom Rainier waited for her by the one table she had requested be left in the room near the edge of the broken stones. She walked to it, set the box down, and opened it.

"At last we come to the Joining," she said quietly, taking out the chalice and setting it to one side. "The Grey Wardens were formed during the First Blight, when humanity stood on the edge of annihilation."

She lifted the thick velvet padding out, revealing under it another layer of padding and several small vials, some red, some blue, one black. "So it was that the first Grey Wardens drank of darkspawn blood and mastered their Taint."

He didn't speak, but drew close, looking over her shoulder. She emptied one larger red vial of blood into the chalice. "This is the source of our power," she said, "and our victory.

"But not all who attempt the Joining survive." A blue vial of lyrium joined the blood. "Those who do are forever changed." She gave the chalice a swirl, then picked up the last vial, the black one.

"Some die?"

"Some," she said. "That is part of why we keep the ritual a secret."

He thought about it while she added one drop of thick sludge to the chalice and swirled it again. It didn't happen often that someone tried to back down, but it had happened. It was her task to kill them if they fled. It was her task to kill him if he fled.

"I'm dead either way," he said finally. "Get on with it."

"There are only a few words we speak at every Joining. They have been spoken since the first." Holding the cup in both hands, she turned to Rainier, met his eyes. "Join us, brother. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten.

"And that one day, we shall join you."

_Soon,_ she silently promised Alistair's shade, as she did every time. _I'll join you soon. I love you._

Rainier took the cup, looked in it, and looked up at her.

She laced her hands together in front of her and waited.

It took them all differently, she knew, watching as he tipped his head back and swallowed. Some it claimed immediately. Others felt nothing, then it took them abruptly in mid-sentence.

Rainier frowned and shook his head unsteadily. The chalice clattered from his hands. "What—What did you do to me?"

"From this moment forth," she said softly, "you are a Grey Warden."

He fell to his knees, landing heavy and graceless. His eyes opened, silver-white from corner to corner, wide, seeing horrors she could not see but had seen. His body jerked, spasmed, drew taut, threatened to snap. He howled in agony, hands curled into claws that dug into his scalp.

He collapsed.

Neria waited, then bent to retrieve the chalice and set it on the table, ignoring the clatter it made as her hands shook.

Drawing one long, slow breath, she crouched beside him and reached a hand out to touch his throat.

A pulse fluttered under her fingertips.

Neria dropped to the stone and buried her face in her hands.

When he finally woke, they spent time in the prison just talking. There was so much he needed to know and very little of it was what he wanted to know. The pain would pass. He would be hungry. He would be able to sense the darkspawn. He was now immune from the Taint carried in darkspawn blood, having his own share of it.

And he would have nightmares.

That caught his attention. "A woman. A _thing_. Huge. Lots of tits on 'er. Darkspawn feeding people to her. And… Gah, even thinking about it makes me sick."

Neria pursed her lips. That was not good news. "They're called Broodmothers. And if one reached you, if you touched her mind, she's close."

"Can't you sense her?"

Neria cocked her head and listened to silence. "No," she said finally. "But the Joining is a singular moment. During my Joining, I saw the archdemon though I could never sense her when I was awake, not until we were quite close. I did dream of her again, though."

"You mean I'm going to have that thing in my head every night, watching her… breed?"

"No," she assured him. "But some nights, perhaps. It's probably best if we seek her out and kill her. We'll begin looking soon. And we'll need more darkspawn blood for the Joining, for other candidates."

"We'll be hunting darkspawn then?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Your first hunt as one of us. It will be different."

His shoulders straightened. "I'm ready, Warden."

She linked her arm through his and walked him toward the door, chalice box tucked under her arm. "You must call me Neria now, Thom," she said. "You are a Warden as well."

They exited the prison. Cullen, standing guard at the top of the small flight of stairs, turned when the door opened. The relief he felt was plain. "You stayed," he said.

Thom turned his head to look at her. She glanced at him. For a moment, she saw realization and sympathy in his eyes and she smiled a little at him, sad and resigned. He understood, now, the secrecy. Why she'd needed a guard. Why she might have had to leave or at least appear to. He knew, as only another Warden could.

"Think I'll go get some sleep," he said gruffly.

"Sleep well, Warden Rainier," she said, letting him slip free from her arm. "In the morning, there will be much to learn and do."

"Good night… Neria."

He walked off across the courtyard toward the distant stables, back straight, head high.

"You've given him back his pride," Cullen murmured.

"It seemed a fair exchange," she said. "I got a brother out of it."

Silence grew between them, twisted uncomfortably in the air. She knew what he was waiting for, and couldn't tell him yes. Couldn't bear to tell him no.

"Neria," he said finally, quietly.

She didn't look up. "I should be near Thom tonight," she said, eyes on the grass. "His dreams will not be restful, and he will not wake peacefully."

"If you don't want to be with me, tell me that. Don't put me off with an excuse that you want to be near a battle-hardened soldier in case he has bad dreams."

But she couldn't tell him that. Instead, she turned her head farther away from him, deliberately summoned Alistair's face to mind. She had heard people say they had trouble remembering a loved one's face or voice after the passage of years or even months. Not so with her. She could recall with perfect clarity his smiles, the way they lit his face and eyes. Or his moments of solemn sorrow when he spoke of Duncan. Or his fierce concentration when he fought, shaking blood out of his eyes and looking back to make sure she was unharmed.

The fear when he told her he loved her, so certain she could not love him back. The hesitant uncertainty after their first kiss. His first kiss.

"Neria?"

"One night," she told him. "Do not ask for more."

"You also gave me the morning."

And with those words, it was Cullen's lips she remembered, the gleam of sweat on the hard lines and muscles of his chest. The smile on his face when she had awoken in his arms. She snatched in a breath and took a step past him. "Then take what you have," she said, harsher than she intended.

He caught her arm, gentle but firm. "And this afternoon, in the garden?"

She retreated to anger next, snapping at him. "What do you want of me, Cullen?"

"Honesty, for a start!"

"I have been honest with you. I have told you I have nothing to give you. I am a Grey Warden. That is all I am, all I can ever be. This fantasy you have created of me, let it go. It's nothing but the foolish dream of a love-struck boy."

"And what is this but a wounded child lashing out?" he demanded, giving her a shake. "Why? Tell me why."

"Because I have said no, Cullen!" She ripped her arm free of him, spinning away and back to face him again. "You have no claim on me, no right to my reasons, my thoughts. If I choose not to give them to you, that is my choice as well."

He didn't chase her, did not reach for her again. He stood where she had left him, one foot on the flattened grass of the courtyard, one foot a step down toward the prison. Torchlight and moonlight painted him in metaled shades, gold and silver and palest copper. His brows were drawn down, furrows between eyes turned amber in the flickering glow of the torches. Though his hair was platinum and bronze, the shadows of whiskers on his cheeks were darker, richer, promising softness over the line of his cheekbones, the chiseled strength of his jaw.

Her anger fell away in tatters.

"Actually, Neria," he said quieter, "the one thing you never said to me was 'no'."

He walked off toward a staircase on the wall, the opposite direction from the stables.

She turned her back and walked to the stables, toward the duty that could not be forsworn.

Though it was not late, most of the keep's inhabitants were asleep or tending to their duties. The barn, by contrast, was brightly lit and full of people. Confused, she stepped closer, saw lanterns burning, heard a cask being broached, laughter and curses mingled. She saw a hanging banner someone had made out of old sacks, the Warden symbol painted haphazardly on it, and the words "Warden Beardface" added in semi-literate slaps of paint.

A celebration. His friends had waited to throw him a party.

For a moment, it was all she could see: Thom dead, contorted on the floor of the prison, burning to ash and gone so no one would know. His friends waiting, growing weary as the hours passed, one by one trailing away or falling asleep in the stables to wait for someone who was never coming back, who never could.

Unconsciously her hand fisted in the black cloth armor over her heart.

She could not be here.

Pivoting on her heel, she turned back to the keep. She would stay in her rooms, and check on Thom in the pre-dawn. Perhaps with enough drink in him, he would sleep soundly.

"Neria?"

She closed her eyes. Too late.

Poised and calm, she turned back and offered a smile. "Leliana," she said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Oh, but you're not! You must come and celebrate with us. It's your party, too."

She shook her head. "Thank you, but no. The Joining is terribly draining. I should sleep."

"But where is Cull—" Leliana glanced around. "Oh," she said quietly, walking to Neria. "Did you quarrel?"

Neria's eyebrows quirked upward. Amused, she said, "Did we quarrel? No, we didn't quarrel."

"You know what I mean."

Neria hesitated, then shook her head. "Just came to an understanding," she said. "He belongs here. I belong to the Wardens. Anything else is impossible, and he is not a man for shallow relationships."

"And you are not a woman for them, either. Do not forget, I was there to see you and Alistair."

Her breath caught. It was all too close to the surface, too sharp. "Good night, Leliana."

"Wait, please."

She shouldn't. She did.

Leliana stepped in front of her, mercifully didn't hold her or hug her. "You have both been too long alone."

"Be reasonable, Leli," she said lightly. "You haven't seen me in over a decade. I could've had a hundred lovers in that time."

"But no loves. Or this one would not cut so deeply. You loved Alistair when you were a girl, and he was a sweet boy who loved you with all his heart. But now perhaps the woman deserves to be loved by a man."

"This from the bard, loved by many but never one," Neria said.

"Oh no, do not try to play at words with me. I have loved and been loved, and am content with my life. This is not about me. This is about you and Cullen. You are drawn to each other. It is a crime against the Maker to turn your back on that."

Neria looked unwillingly at the office tower. Candlelight still flickered in the windows. "And I'd suppose you know," she murmured.

Leliana chuckled. "Of course. I am the Divine, after all."

Finally, she shook her head. "Better a small heartbreak now than a larger one later."

"Better happiness for a short time than a loneliness for a lifetime," countered Leliana.

"You suggested I not play at words with you, and so I shall not. Good night, Leliana."

"Oh!" sighed the Divine, all but stomping one dainty foot. "You are so stubborn!"

"I'm a Grey Warden," she said. "They are synonymous."

Leliana took one step closer, all but brushing against her. "Go to him," she insisted. "If you waste this, you are a fool."

Neria leaned her forehead against Leliana's. She rested there a moment, felt her hands stroke her arms.

Then she pulled away and walked into the keep.

When she got to her room, it wasn't empty.

The form in the moonlight was easily recognized, if only by the wide sweep of horns. She gestured, lighting the fire and the torches in one flex of will and magic. Purely, she acknowledged to herself, for show. Qunari were never easy around open displays of magic.

"Shanedan, Qunari," she said, walking to her bed and setting her staff in the weapon's rack nearby.

"Tal-Vashoth these days," he said, paying no more mind to the fire lit than he had to it unlit.

That, she hadn't heard. So the Inquisitor did not have a Qunari lover after all. She really had to send that letter to Arishok. Her slender fingers undid the leather buckles and straps that held the black armor over her shift.

She didn't speak to him. He had come to her, so he had something to say. She would wait until he said it, answer him, and he would leave. She understood Qunari as a people. They were comforting to her.

Wordless, he walked over to her and helped her with the buckles at her shoulders that she could never quite reach. She could wriggle out of the armor without undoing them, but this made it easier.

"Tevinter robe," he noted as she slid out of it.

That, too, required no answer.

He chuckled. "Yeah, you spent years in Par Vollen, didn't you?"

"You don't talk like one of them," she said.

"Neither do you."

"I wasn't born there."

"If I stand here long enough, are you going to get naked? Because you look kinda bony for my tastes, but I never turn down a free show."

Neria eyed him and deliberately removed her shift. Qunari were not, as a rule, body shy. He was trying to shock her, to nudge her off-balance. But the shift did need airing out, preferably washing though her small pack allowed her little in the way of a change of clothes. She set it over a chair near the fire.

"Woman, you really are skin and bones. Except for the tits. Those are nice."

She continued to ignore him, settling down on the bed to undo the snug braid and strip out the silver and blue leather she wound into it.

He sighed. "Fine. You need to stick close to Cullen."

"No, I don't."

"You do if you want to stay in Skyhold."

That got her attention. She lifted her eyes to the mercenary, the Tal-Vashoth. For all his lascivious comments, he was looking her in the face, serious, arms folded.

Large.

"The Inquisitor has said I may stay."

"And the Inquisitor does what she wants with the Inquisition. But when it comes to Evelyn, I make the decisions."

"Kas-berasala," she murmured.

"Heard about that, huh? Good that you know what it means. That way I don't have to explain it to you."

He said 'explain it to you'. He meant 'beat you within an inch of your life'. He had Leliana's way with inflection and emphasis. "Ben-Hassrath, were you?"

"At one point. Been a lot of things."

"I'm not leaving Skyhold until I've done what I came to do," she said. "Feel free to attempt an explanation at any point."

"Now that Blackwall's a Warden, you can go."

"He isn't the only candidate. Just the first."

"We can send the others to you."

"I would need to examine them first."

"Blackwall can do it."

"Thom," she corrected absently. He was right, though. She could leave. There was nothing that said the candidates had to have their Joining at Skyhold. In fact, it would be better if they didn't. At Amaranthine, everyone knew not to enter the chamber set aside for the ritual. No one questioned disappearances of candidates. The Vigil was nearly empty; it would be good to be there again, for a time.

It was a perfect solution.

So why didn't she take it?

"You've got no reason to be here anymore, Warden. So get out. Or stay where Cullen can keep an eye on you. Those are your only two options."

Her fingers combed slowly through her hair, freeing it to fall in dark, soft waves around her. "Tal-Vashoth," she murmured. "I have heard you. I have heard your wishes. Now hear me."

She stood, clothed only in firelight and her own hair, and looked up at him. "I am a Warden. The First Warden has given me a task. I will complete that task, and when it is done, I will depart.

"But if you try to hinder me. Stop me. Even so much as fail to move fast enough out of my way. Then, Tal-Vashoth, I will kill you. I will bring fire down on this stronghold to melt the stone and crack the mountain. I will layer this ground so deep in the bones of your dead that even the Maker will look away in horror.

"And I won't even need to step outside of this room to do it."

He walked toward her, one step, then another. "That's why you're leaving," he said, seemingly untouched by her threat.

"Because I'm a mage?"

"No. Because you're an insane one."

She blinked first. "What?"

"Told Evelyn, then I told Cullen. You snapped somewhere along the line, and I'm not allowed to kill you before you start dancing in our blood, but I can get rid of you. You either stick close to the one guy I think might make you hesitate before turning him into a pile of body parts, or you get out of my fucking castle. Your choice, Bas Saarebas. Pick soon."

He left.

Pale and shaking, Neria stood by the bed and stared at the fire she had made.


	8. Chapter 8

What happened?

He couldn't answer it, couldn't understand it. Couldn't rest because of it. In the gardens, she had been warm. Hesitant. Vulnerable and open.

Then he'd left, gone to get the damned chalice for her thrice-damned ritual. He saw it then, the doors closing, the walls going back up. And by the time she had come out, she was back to the same guarded, secretive, angry…

"Bitch," he muttered, turning onto his side and punching his pillow. Her thoughts were hers, were they? She was welcome to them.

Satisfied, he jammed the pillow between his head and shoulder and closed his eyes.

The pillow smelled like her.

He sat up and threw it across the room.

What _happened_?

He ran a hand through his hair. Maybe Bull was right. Maybe she was insane, and well on her way to dragging him down with her. For though there was a memory of her casually condemning to death hundreds of people, there was one of her sitting in the garden laughing up at Dorian while a vine leaned toward her as if she were sunlight itself. He remembered her ice-and-fire anger condemning him for actions he had never taken, then remembered her smiling at him from under night-black lashes, still soft and muzzy with sleep.

Which was the real her, that was the question. They couldn't all be. She'd have to be…

"Crazy," he said aloud. He looked up at the echoes. "For instance, she probably sits in her bed talking to herself in the middle of the night."

With a sigh, he got up to get the pillow.

One of the doors opened downstairs. He waited, head cocked. When no one called out, he tossed the pillow back on the bed and walked to the ladder, crouching.

Neria walked into the square of office he could see and looked up at him. Her cloak shrouded most of her, moonlight from the windows illuminating her in stripes of silver. "I didn't want to wake you," she said after a moment. "May I come up?"

"I don't know," he said. "Which one of you is asking?"

She frowned at him. "What?"

"Nothing," he said. "Of course you can come up."

But if she yelled at him again, he was throwing her right back down the ladder. He held down a hand to help her stand.

Her cloak fell open, letting long curves of loose black hair slide out.

She shivered slightly and pulled the cloak close around her again. The room was cold, but not prohibitively so to him, even shirtless and in his loose pants. Neria, clearly, felt differently. He struggled against his instincts, turning to keep her in view as she walked around the room, hem of her smock whispering across the floor.

"Tal-Vashoth was in my room tonight," she said finally.

That wasn't what he expected to hear. "Bull?"

"I forget he has a name. Yes, him. He said… He told me he thinks I'm insane."

Cullen grimaced. "I'd say subtlety isn't his strong suit, except it is. Be wary of the things he says directly. That's usually the last thing he actually means."

She glanced back at him with a half-smile. "Now you sound like one of the antaam."

"The what?"

"Qunari military. Their army. They have a saying: Trust the Ben-Hassrath, but nothing of what they say." She sat on the bed, curling her legs under her, hiding them under the sweeping blue folds of her cloak. "He said he told you the same thing, that I'm insane."

"He did, as it happens. Yesterday afternoon."

"And what did you say?"

"I told him I thought he was wrong." But he hadn't said that. With a shrug, he added, "And I may have suggested I was going to chop his head off and toss him over the wall."

That surprised a laugh out of her, a quick huff of amusement. She looked down and studied her bare toes peeking out from under her cloak. She'd walked here barefoot.

With a sigh, he surrendered to himself and walked over, pulling a blanket from the bed around her.

"Do you suppose he's right?" she asked.

"I think he wants you to think he's right. And for some reason, he wants me to think that, too."

She smiled a little at him as he sat next to her. "Thank you for that." Then she sighed. "I should have gone when I first said I would. I didn't understand how crowded it would be here. Seeing all of you has brought up too many memories, too much… of everything. It's easier when I can just be the Grey Warden and not Neria. Or when I can be nobody at all."

He could have comforted her, but found for the first time he didn't want to. So far being comforting had failed both her and himself. He was even reasonably sure he could seduce her again, but he didn't want that either.

Well, it definitely wouldn't help matters.

Not all of them, anyway.

So instead, he asked, "Why are you here?"

"The chalice," she said. "You know that."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I mean why are you _here_?"

"Oh. Tal-Vashoth. He told me I could either leave Skyhold or stay close to you. Since I don't want to wake up with something incredibly venomous under my covers chewing on my toes, I thought to come here. At least until I can come up with a way to out-maneuver him."

That pricked his pride, but only for a moment. He had a better head for tactics than that. "In your shift, barefoot? I find it hard to believe you were that terrified."

She pulled the blanket a little closer around her, seeking the extra comfort perhaps and not incidentally reminding him of her fragilities. He wondered how long she had been doing that to him, playing on his desire to comfort and protect her. It didn't even make him angry, just somewhat amused. It was easy to forget she had, in fact, led men into battle. Her grasp of tactics was just fine.

"I suppose I also wanted to apologize," she said. "For before. At the prison."

"Not accepted."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"I do not accept your apology," he repeated. "Not until you explain yourself."

"I need to explain why I wouldn't sleep with you?"

"No." He frowned at her. "Of course not. But you do need to explain why you simply didn't say no, why you felt the need to lash out at me."

She frowned right back at him and stood to pace, abandoning the blanket. "You are so… frustrating!" she said.

"So are you. You're also remarkably good at changing subjects and deflecting attention. Picking a fight with me isn't going to work this time. Why are you here, Neria? What happened this evening that changed everything? It can't simply be Blackwall – sorry, Thom. He's a Grey Warden now; no one will question that."

She studied him.

He waited, not willing to back down, calm but obdurate.

"It was him," she said finally, turning away from him. "It was everything about that. Please don't ask me questions I cannot answer."

He stood and walked in front of her again, making her face him, taking her chin in one hand and tilting her face back so he could see her eyes, her expressions. "I am asking."

"Yes, but you don't know what you're asking. I cannot be both Neria and the Warden-Commander. Not here. Not…" She bit her lip. "It's too much. I've decided the fate of nations, Cullen. The Dwarven king is on his throne solely because of me, because I chose him for it so that I could get what the Wardens demanded. This is no different. I must do what I must do, and can allow nothing and no one to stop me."

He didn't see the parallel, but one had to be there. She didn't speak casually; he couldn't answer her thoughtlessly. "Something about tonight," he said slowly, "made you believe that someone will try to stop you from doing what you're here to do."

Surprise flickered across her face, widened those eyes of hers. Then she laughed a little, wry and bitter. "I suppose I oughtn't be surprised how fast you put pieces together," she said. "You never were a stupid man."

But he wasn't done. "And if we try to stop you, you'll… what, Neria? What will you do?"

"What I must." Resolve. Bleak and painful.

For an instant, he felt the urge to throw her out into the snow. Whatever she had come to do was so terrible that if anyone found out, they would try to stop her and she would fight back. He sensed the threat to his soldiers, his people, his friends, and his hands tightened.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Please stop asking me questions. It can still be avoided."

"After telling me that, you expect me to stop asking questions?" he said. "You're going to sit and tell me everything. We'll… we'll find another way. Surely this doesn't all have to end in bloodshed and death."

She winced and jerked her face out of his grip.

He let her, but took her hands when she would have turned away again. "Start at the beginning," he said. "What is it you're to do that we will not want you to do?"

"We have our secrets for a reason," she said, looking down at their joined hands. "We have them because at some point in our history, they weren't secrets and some Grey Warden was forced to make a choice that you're going to force me to make."

"Choose, then," he urged her, soft as he could, gentle as he could. "If you're worried you'll have to defend yourself, I won't let anyone harm you. Evelyn won't; she idolizes the Grey Wardens. And I don't think you'd kill me, either. Not just strike me down."

She lifted her head to look at him, and for a moment, he saw it in her. She thought about doing it, thought about killing him just to remove an obstacle, to have it done, to move on. His fingers tightened on hers but he didn't move.

She broke first.

Her shoulders slumped and she sighed, long and shaky, and looked down at her their joined hands again. "No," she whispered. "I don't think I could."

Something wet and hot splashed against his hands. Tears, he realized. He'd made her cry.

Cullen leaned into her, pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Then it's decided. I'll not kill you, you'll not kill me, and we'll find a way through. What do you have to do that's so terrible?"

"Swear to me," she whispered still, still looking down. "Swear to me on blessed Andraste, on the Maker himself, on your own soul. Swear to me that what I say, you will forever keep to yourself."

"Neria…"

"Swear it, or I will leave tonight and have them send another in my place. Swear it, or you will never see me again. If you want this answer, if you want this burden, swear never to reveal it by word or deed, not to anyone, not even another Warden. Do that, and I will tell you."

Could he do it? Whatever this secret was, it was ripping her apart but still she held it close, refused to set it aside. Would it do the same to him? How awful could it be?

"I swear," he said slowly. "By blessed Andraste, by the Maker, by my own soul. What we speak of tonight, I will never reveal. Not by word or deed."

His promise seemed to steal the strength from her and she went to bed to sit. He let go of her hands and watched her, held his breath for the revelation.

"I am here to recruit," she said.

That was all? He knew that. "Thom didn't seem to mind so much," he said, sitting next to her.

"You heard the scream."

He had. Almost, he had wrenched the door open, but he had given his word. He understood then, with his hand on the door handle, that that was why she had made him give it. She had expected the scream, the pain, and had wanted him not to interfere. "Yes," he said. "But I decided it was something that you knew was coming. Not something unusual."

"It's not. Not everyone screams, but most do. Enough do."

"So there's more than that."

She didn't answer.

He tried to extrapolate. "It's painful."

A tiny nod.

How painful? A new thought. "Is it… Can the Joining be lethal?"

Nothing at first, then an even smaller motion of her head, so slight he almost missed it. "Neria?"

"Yes!" she said, looking up at him now, frantic, teetering on panic. "Yes, it kills. It kills someone in every group. In my Joining, I was the only one of three to survive, and we don't know why. The willing die while the unwilling live. The weak survive, the strong do not. Men and women die equally, warriors or mages or farmers, it makes little difference.

"And we cannot tell people that it happens, or they wouldn't come. They would chase us from towns and cities rather than let us kill their sons and daughters. We would not be heroes, we would be only gargoyles come to snatch away their children. The darkspawn would need only wait until we killed ourselves off and no one existed who could stop a blight. So in every town, every city I go to, they come to me, and I kill them."

He grappled with what she said, fought down his instinctive denial of it. It couldn't be true. The Grey Wardens had secrets, but to have kept this one for so long? How many candidates had been killed? How many of his friends had gone to the Wardens? Templars he had known for years had submitted themselves for testing, and he'd rarely heard from any of them again. Had all those he hadn't heard from died? It was known that Wardens rarely returned home. Was this why, to hide from their families the true numbers of those who died before even becoming Wardens?

He thought then of the soldiers practicing in the yard, giving their utmost so they would be ready, seem worthy when she came to them, when they submitted themselves for testing. Hoping she would choose one of them, because everyone knew the Grey Wardens took only the best.

He thought about how he had helped them, encouraged them.

His fists clenched. "By the Maker, you will not do this to my people!"

She didn't flinch away, only looked up at him, the tracks of tears still shining on her cheeks though her eyes were clear of them now. The sorrow was still there, but so was the resolve. "Yes," she said gently, "I will."

"Not unknowing. You will give them the choice."

She shook her head, silent denial. She would not.

"How—" He didn't even know how to ask. "How can you not—?"

"They are Grey Wardens the moment they come to us for the Joining," she said. "They are my brothers and sisters. They know Grey Wardens may die, may be killed. There is no point to them knowing too soon."

"Do they ever find out?"

"Yes," she said. "We tell them at the Joining. We tell them not every candidate survives the ritual."

"And they all still submit to it?" he asked, incredulous. But he knew the answer. "No. No, they don't. Not every one would. Some must object. And you… what? Force them into it anyway? Make them drink whatever you put in that chalice?"

"No," she said, watching him, miserable and pale. "They would never fight with us. Though the Wardens will do even that, should the need be great enough."

His head spun. "You kill them," he said, staring at her. "The ones who refuse. You kill them."

She didn't have to nod, didn't have to speak. It was the only option left.

All their conversations came back to him and he ran both hands through his hair, left them there atop his head. "Maker. Before you went in, you knew this could all happen. You might have had to kill him for refusing. He could have died in this ritual of yours. You said you might have to leave immediately. You made me think you would take him with you, but you didn't mean that at all."

He felt sick. Furious. She had known all along, from the moment the chalice had arrived she had known what she would do, and she said nothing.

"You wanted to know what happened that changed everything," she said. "Tonight you sent your friend to me, and had he died I would have burned his body and never told you. I would have left and then come back. Had to, because that is my task. And when I did, you would have asked me about him. I would have told you more lies, about how he was training and couldn't be contacted.

"You would have believed me and wanted to hold me, kiss me, wanted to take me to your bed never knowing that I had murdered your friend and swept his ashes into the mountain."

He still couldn't speak.

"And when he survived, that wasn't the end. There would still be more to test, some of whom would die. Some of whom _will_ die. And you wanted to be with me, because you didn't know what I was going to do to them. So I pushed you away. I cannot stop being a Grey Warden. I can stop being Neria."

And he couldn't tell anyone. Couldn't warn them. Not by deed or action. He had sworn. That, he realized, was what was destroying her. Not the killing. The secrets and lies, facing the hopeful smiles and eager eyes, knowing and not being able to warn them or tell them.

He sat heavily.

"What did you think, Cullen?" she asked softly. "That this was something small and easy that I had blown out of proportion? Now you know. Tomorrow you will watch your people follow me into the prison and know that some of them will die, and you cannot warn them.

"You'll carry this forever. I'm sorry. You can't even share it with another Warden as I can, because if they know I told you, they would kill you to keep the secret. They would send me somewhere away from Ferelden, where I will not again fail in my loyalty to them. If they did not kill me outright."

"How?" he asked blankly. "How do you do it?"

"We command soldiers to die in every battle," she said. "That's not the hard part. The hard part is lying, pretending to be a hero when you know inside what you really are. The hard part is having someone approach you in a city and say their brother is a Warden but he's been sent to the Anderfels and they've not had word. Perhaps you know him? The hard part is a mother telling you how proud she is that you've chosen her daughter to be a Warden, handing you a packet of her child's favorite foods for the road when you know the daughter has already died in agony.

"The hard part is choosing a man to leave his pregnant wife, to go with you, only to have to kill him when he tries to flee because he doesn't want to die and leave wife and child alone in the world."

"Not telling them beforehand? Maker, Cullen, that's the easiest part of all."

He grappled with it, with his understanding, with the weight of it. "Is that all?" he asked.

She laughed a little, humorless and sad. "No. But that is what changed tonight. That is why I didn't want to be with you. I had to stop pretending to be Neria. I had to be the Grey Warden, and I could not find a way to reconcile the two. I couldn't… be with you and lie to you." She passed a hand over her eyes. "Then the party. They were celebrating, never knowing I had tried and failed to kill him tonight. They were happy for him, but they didn't know what it was they should be happy for."

"What now?" he asked finally, lost for direction.

"Now you have to decide what you will do tomorrow when I make the choice among those who volunteer. Will you be there and watch and say nothing? Will you stay in here so you do not risk breaking your sworn oath? What will you say when people ask you if you have tidings from me of those you know have died, after I leave unseen in the night with those who survive?"

Each word was a rock around his neck, pulling him lower, bowing his shoulders. And one last burden, set atop the rest.

"What will you do when I come back?"

He stood again and walked away, only a few steps to cross the room, not nearly enough to escape, to leave it behind. He tried to master his emotions, to think, and found he could not. "Will you give me time?"

"Some," she said behind him. "If an archdemon rises tomorrow I might not be able to, but absent that, we have time."

He needed it. Time to try to think, not just feel.

He heard her rise, heard the rustle of her shift. She was so light, her footsteps were all but inaudible even in the silence. She hesitated by the ladder. "I never thought it would be so hard to keep it from you, but it was. The more wonderful you were to me, the worse it got. Please forgive me. For not telling you. For telling you. For making you promise."

He was at her side in two long strides. Still, he didn't look at her face. He had to touch her, to know her as something other than a disembodied voice. His hands almost spanned her waist beneath her cloak. The fabric of the shift rumpled under his hands. Long strands of hair curled over and under his fingers, silken shadows that caressed his skin.

"Stay," he said, low and rough. He didn't want to be alone with this.

He felt her sharply indrawn breath, looked up to see hope battling uncertainty in her expression.

"Stay," he repeated. "I don't know what I'll do, what I'll feel in the morning, what I'll decide. But tonight, I want you with me."

"Then… you don't hate me?"

That hadn't even been anywhere in his thoughts. "Hate you?" he repeated, confused. "For what?"

Her hands rose to cup his face, and she kissed him. Her mouth was soft, hot, and growing steadily more insistent. He slid his hands farther around her, gathered her against him, felt the thinness of the cloth between their bodies.

He didn't hate her.


	9. Chapter 9

She shouldn't feel so happy.

No one who had given another person the burden she had should feel so wonderful, should feel so much like laughing and hugging the sky simply because she could. It wasn't something you should do to someone you cared about.

She made herself think about how hard the next few days would be for him. Cullen carried responsibility like… like his own armor: heavy, but a mark of his office that was impossible, unthinkable to set aside. This would only add to that weight.

And just because he didn't blame her for it now didn't mean he wouldn't come to. As he set about filling the holes in his ranks, the empty spots might become too much for him. A small sadness now might grow out of control, turning to anger and hatred.

Or so she tried to counsel herself.

It didn't help.

And the Wardens. What of her own promise to keep secret the ways of the Order? Oh, technically she had never promised – and she must be sure to extract such an oath from Thom in the coming days – but that was a bit of sophistry she wouldn't allow herself. She knew it was forbidden to discuss Warden secrets, and she knew why.

That did disturb her happiness. Corypheus had done so much to destroy faith in the Wardens. The Wardens themselves had done it. Clarel had been so sure she was making the right decision, raising a demon army to march through the Deep Roads, to hunt and slay any old gods they found. Now the Wardens were tainted with Blood Magic, known for sacrificing their own. Especially among the Inquisition soldiers. They had been at Adamant, had seen it for themselves.

Maybe she wouldn't get as many recruits as she thought she might.

There, she thought, satisfied. That had squashed that unreasonable happiness right out of her.

Carefully, Neria began disentangling herself from Cullen. It wasn't easy. He had draped himself over her and around her. She bit her lower lip to keep from laughing at the problem.

Damn it. There was that happiness again.

"Stop squirming," he mumbled against her forehead. "I'm not letting you go."

Her sides hitched with silent laughter. "I have to go check on Thom," she said.

The arm over her tightened and his leg curled, pulling her closer. "Thom's fine," he said. "And I'll be damned if you're leaving my bed to go to another man."

She dropped her head and tried to control herself, but it was no use. Once she started laughing, she couldn't stop.

"What're you giggling about, you lunatic?"

"Nothing," she said finally, smiling against his chest. "Go back to sleep; it's not morning yet."

"Almost is," he said, sighing. He shifted away from her, and she looked up. Not that she could see much in the darkness. But then she realized he was right. There was some light, not enough to call it dawn, but some. And he was frowning.

"What?" she asked, wondering if her dire predictions had come true already.

"Twice."

"Well, actually I think it was more like three times but only because you didn't stop after that second one."

He laughed, and the sound made her heart spin like a top. "Not that." He paused. "Damn, now I can't remember what I was saying."

She wriggled out of his grasp and turned to sit on the edge of the bed. "You think about that while I go check on Thom. He's likely to have had nightmares."

"Nightmares," he said, sitting up. "That's what I was thinking about."

"Wake up with me in your arms, and you're thinking about nightmares? Hardly complimentary."

"That's just it. I always have nightmares. But with you here, I don't. Also, you're not leaving while I'm still lying on your hair."

She tugged and discovered he was right. "You see, this is why I keep it braided."

"We'll strike a bargain," he proposed, lifting himself off the bed so she could free her hair. "You leave it unbraided in our bed and I'll help you get the knots out in the morning."

"You say that now," she said, flipping the (tangled and knotted) mess over and over one hand to twist it, then wrap it around itself in a wide bun. "Just wait until you start. It can take hours."

His hand stroked down her bare back. "Done. I'll expect you to keep your word on this," he said, conveniently ignoring the fact that she hadn't agreed to his bargain at all.

She stood to slide into her shift – it really did need to be washed – and pulled her cloak on. "I … suppose by the time I'm done with Thom, you'll be up and about your duties."

Behind her, she heard him sigh and drop back down to the bed. "Probably," he said. "Come by anyway."

"Are you sure you want me to?" she asked, sitting on the bed with one leg curled under her so she could face him.

"Of course I want you to." He reached up to cup the side of her face in one hand and frowned at her. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I suppose I keep thinking reality is going to set in and you're going to change your mind about me."

"Why would I change my mind?"

"It was unfair of me to tell you what I did," she said. "I'd no right to place that burden on you, not just to make things easier on myself."

"Did it?"

"That's not the point."

"But did it?"

She didn't answer. It shouldn't have, that was the problem. Placing it on his shoulders, having it be easier on her, felt so selfish, so… petty and mean.

He sat up, brushing a kiss across her forehead. "It wouldn't have been better if you'd kept lying to me," he said.

"I should have left before it got to that point."

"You couldn't have."

"Of course I could have, Cullen. I could've had you send any candidates to Amaranthine. I could have even assessed them here and sent the acceptable ones there for the Joining, and never have had to deal with the deaths at all."

"You would have," he said. "Sooner or later. That would only have delayed things a bit. Unless you intended never to come back at all."

"It would have been for the best."

"For the best for whom? Not for me. This burden you've shared, I may not yet know what I'll do about it, but I don't regret making you tell me. Certainly not if it means this." He slid a hand up her arm. "Unless… Unless you don't want this."

"This?"

"Us."

Us. Was she part of an 'us', now? Did she want to be?

"Us," she said, her smile returning. Then she made herself stop doing that. "'Us' is impossible. I'll be going from one end of Ferelden to the other, recruiting and testing, and you've this massive army to command."

"I know."

"It's not remotely practical. We'll hardly ever see each other."

"I understand that."

"You know there's still the real Calling."

He sighed heavily. "Yes well, every relationship has its difficulties. Neria, I'm not planning the rest of our lives, but neither do I want this to end just because we cannot guarantee tomorrow. And you still haven't answered me. Do you want this?"

She did, she realized. She wanted exactly this: mornings with him, waking up to hear his voice, to laugh at his teasing. She wanted to go to sleep at night, warm and with someone she could rely on to be there, to help her, to match her.

That, she admitted to herself, was something she had never had with Alistair. Could never have had. Oh, in combat he more than held his own but he had always looked to her to lead, to decide. He had never wanted the responsibility.

She hadn't minded. She had even, foolish girl that she'd been, taken a somewhat perverse enjoyment out of having the former Templar do her bidding. And it was something she used ruthlessly to make him see that marrying Anora was the best for Ferelden.

At which point he'd promptly stopped listening to her and refused to continue their relationship, breaking her heart in return for her breaking his by telling him to marry another woman. Then he'd said he loved her, and killed a dragon for her.

"I see," Cullen said, breaking into her thoughts. He released her arm and sat back, turning away.

"No, wait," she said, twisting toward him.

He paused, looking back at her.

"I do. I want this. Even… even though I'm not entirely sure what 'this' is. I want you."

Lines of tension relaxed in his muscles, and that too-charming half a smile appeared.

He slid towards her again, rested his forehead against hers. "I don't know what this is either," he said, "but I know I don't want to lose it before we even get the chance to find out."

"Remarkably, that is exactly what I know about it," she said.

They rested against each other, one long moment of absolutely nothing, shared between them.

Then he tilted his head to kiss her. "Go check on your newborn Warden," he said, "then come back to me."

"I will," she whispered. "I promise."

* * *

(End notes, almost cut-n-pasted from AO3, with an additional tidbit: There is a lot more in this story, in a sense. What happens when Cullen gets his first glimpse at Neria demonstrating the power of that fully operational mage Warden? In DAO, she could drop a firestorm, a hurricane, AND a blizzard and still have enough whammy to fireball anyone audacious enough to survive. Compared to DAI mages, she was beastmode all day, every day. What happens when Neria discovers Cullen's carrying around a lyrium potion just in case he has to shut her down hardcore? What happens when she actually does kill some of his soldiers, his friends, in a Joining ritual? And what happens when she comes back?

But that's not the story I've been wanting to tell since way back when Alistair died in Origins. I replayed that scene a million times with different choices, always trying to force a different ending. Neria thought she was going to die, I thought she was going to die, and Alistair's death was one of the most shocking moments of my very long gaming life. So since that time, I've been looking for a way to mend Neria's broken heart.

Now that I've written this, I don't want to write any further. I've given Neria a beginning for something new with someone who's her equal in every way, damn near the perfect partner for her. I gave Cullen his fairy tale, the woman he never forgot, and someone who truly can understand what they did to him, why he has nightmares, and how to deal with them.

The one thing I haven't explained is that in headcanon, his nightmares don't stop just because he's sleeping with a woman - they don't stop if you romance Cullen in DAI after all - but because she's just so powerful she actually exudes magic. She physically alleviates some of the symptoms of lyrium withdrawal for him. But odds are neither of them would ever figure that out, so I'm fine with them both assuming it's a love/sex thing.

The other thing I didn't explain, as was pointed out on AO3, was Neria's insanity. She IS insane. She's a borderline sociopath, and she took some serious mental damage to make her that way. All Grey Wardens have to be, in a sense. Canonically, they will raze entire villages to kill darkspawn, if they must. I'm not sure many Grey Wardens would have disagreed with the mayor of Crestwood's methods, just his sorting. In a headcanon scene, Bull explains it to Evelyn by saying that Neria doesn't see most people. She looks at them. But she does see Cullen. Her insanity is not cured in this story, and it probably should have been at least dealt with so I'm sorry for that dangling thread.

All of that was to say I'm done. This is the story I wanted to tell. Two walking wounded who found each other, older and wiser but somewhere inside still the naive Templar and his cocky little mage. They have a long way to go in terms of building on these beginnings, but they're both battle-scarred enough to know that all they have to do now is not let anything stop them.

I'm happy with this story. I hope you are as well.)


End file.
